


Zombie Apocalypse For Beginners

by Jacob_M_Bosch



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M, Multiple Crossovers, Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault of a Minor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28221522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacob_M_Bosch/pseuds/Jacob_M_Bosch
Summary: Separated from his friends, Xander strikes out alone in a world overrun by the walking dead.When a routine supply run naturally ends badly, Xander has to make a snap decision to save Shane's life and reveal his most closely guarded secret.
Relationships: Shane Walsh/Xander Harris
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	1. Tricks and Tips

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended 

Xander sat in the back seat of the Hatchback with Dixon and Glenn, with Glenn in the middle. Rick and Shane were up front, and Shane drove. Besides Xander and Glenn, none of the other men in the car spoke. Dixon was quiet because the guy gave Oz a run for his money when it came to being terse. Rick and Shane were silent because they tried to out-stoic each other. Just plain being real assholes.

Xander was only there because he had nothing better to do, and because Glenn was an idiot. It surely wasn’t because he was trying to be brave, or spare anyone else in the camp the danger of going on a supply run—he barely knew most of them. Or liked them. He did like Glenn, and the kid all but swore fealty to Rick, so Xander packed a bag and suited up.

As they drove southbound on the freeway toward Concord, Xander silently questioned Shane finally accepting Rick’s offer to go on scavenging runs for the camp. Shane was generally stand-offish with everyone Rick brought in from Atlanta, and had resisted any co-operation, so it was suspicious, at least to Xander, that he acted like Mr. Teamwork all of a sudden.

Shane wasn't stupid. He recognized that Xander and Dixon knew how to keep cool and kill zombies better than anyone else in the camp, and that Glenn was quick and clever, and good at getting himself out of tight spots. Shane understood they could be useful, but it was obvious he didn’t trust them enough to take advantage of their usefulness.

Until now.

And when people suddenly change their behavior overnight it made Xander extremely paranoid.

Xander worked out a couple solid theories on what Shane could be scheming: Shane hoped one or more of them had “accidents” during their scavenger hunt. Glenn and Dixon, especially. They were Rick’s biggest supporters, and would take his side when the predictable battle for control over the camp came to a head.

Xander’s second theory was Shane would cut out the literal middle men, and off Rick with friendly fire.

Either way, Xander was going to keep an eye on him.

It was almost noon when they reached Concord’s city limits. Countless abandoned vehicles littered the road, so they hid their car in the impromptu parking lot and crossed their fingers it'd still be there when they came back. From that point on they knew zombie encounters were guaranteed.

The group retrieved their big weapons from the trunk and geared up.

Xander hefted his horseman’s ax. It was half the size of the double bladed ax strapped to his back, which is what he used when he needed to mow down mobs. He rarely swung the horseman’s ax. He mainly used the spike opposite the blade, and on the hilt, to poke zombie brains.

Dixon had his crossbow primed and ready. Glenn unsheathed his machete. He also had a folding knife on him somewhere. Rick and Shane carried their police issue guns, plus a small wood splitting ax each.

When they set off Xander walked behind Shane, Rick, and Glenn. Dixon brought up the rear. 

“Don’t forget where we parked,” Xander said, eliciting a snort from Glenn and a groan from Dixon.

The going was slow, and the pickings were slim. They were competing with other desperate survivors for ever dwindling resources, so not immediately finding anything useful was to be expected. They came across a few grocery stores and warehouses, but had to pass them up because a sea of zombies surrounded them.

Worse than not finding any bacon to bring home, was was the smell. The stink of raw sewage was so thick it was like being surrounded by rows of toilets overflowing with crap. Add the fetid odor of rotting zombie with human waste, and the unholy stench was enough to make Xander’s eye water.

The smell got even worse when the scavengers ran into a large group of zombies. The horde wasn’t as large as the ones back in Atlanta, but a good two or three hundred zombies filled out the undead herd. To avoid attracting any unwanted attention from the horde, they cut through a nearby alley that luckily had few zombies loitering in it. 

They were still hurrying to put distance between themselves and the horde when Glenn called out to them to stop. He’d halted beside a white van parked in front of an apartment building that had its windows and front entrance covered with sheets of plywood. The van was unmarked except for a decal on the upper right side of the windshield that read: 

**Inpax**.

“What’s going on? Why are you stopping?” Shane asked.

“This is a delivery van,” Glenn said.

Rick glance at the van. “How do you know?”

“This company,” Glenn pointed at the van’s logo, “used these vans to deliver sauce to the pizza place I worked at.”

They all looked at the van and imagined the possibilities. 

The van seemed like it hadn’t been touched since the zombie uprising. No broken windows. Not even scratched paint. Best case scenario there was food inside. Worse case they’d find a zombie and waste a few seconds putting it down.

“That horde is real close,” Dixon reminded them.

“It’s worth the risk,” Rick said.

For once Shane didn’t argue and nodded in agreement.

“Do your thing, Harris,” said Rick.

Xander walked around to the rear of the van. The others stood with their backs to him to keep an eye out while he pretended to pick the lock. Xander smiled and thought it probably would have been easier to learn how to jimmy locks. The unlocking spell was simple, relatively speaking, but it still took him almost two months to learn it. Another three to master it. He once heard you could learn to pick locks on the internet in less than ten minutes.

Xander placed his hand over the wafer lock and focused his thoughts on the proper incantation. The spell could’ve been activated instantly if he said it out loud, but then he’d have to explain why he was speaking in tongues. Somehow Xander didn’t think acting touched in the head would inspire confidence from his new pals.

After Xander freed the lock he signaled the others. Shane and Rick came over while Glenn and Dixon remained on guard. Xander placed his hand on the lift handle and made eye contact first with Shane, then Rick to make sure they were ready if a zombie jumped out. Both raised their axes and nodded. Xander slowly opened the door.

Shane lowered his ax and whistled when he saw what was inside. Xander totally got it. There was at least five dozen boxes of granola bars and mixed nuts stacked in the back of the van.

“It ain’t steak and beer,” Shane said, “but I’ll take it.”

Rick chuckled and gave Shane two friendly pats on the back.

“How we gonna get all this back to camp?” Dixon asked.

It was a lot of boxes. Each of them could carry three or four cartons in their packs. Six, if they took stuff out, but they’d still be leaving the lion’s share behind.

“Maybe we take what we can carry, then come back with a charged battery, some gas, and drive the van out of here,” Glenn suggested.

Rick rubbed his stubble thoughtfully then shared a look with Shane.

“No one’s found this stuff so far. Might be worth the risk,” Shane said.

They decided to carry what they could and come back for the rest. One of the boxes was enough to last the camp a week if they rationed. When they finished stuffing their packs with the goods, Xander magically locked the van and placed a see-me-not spell on it as well. It wouldn’t work if someone was actively looking for the van, but should make anyone else ignore it.

Xander had just finished the spell when a horde of zombies came shambling down the street.

“Shit!” Glenn exclaimed.

“Let’s go!” Shane said.

They took off running in the opposite direction just as the moans, and the smells, of the horde reached them. Glenn led the way. He’d been to this town before, and was their best bet to find their way back to the car without getting turned around. 

The zombies slow movement gave them an advantage, but they still had to maneuver through a maze of cars, and dodge or dispatch random zombies that popped up in their path.

They turned onto the next street and came to an abrupt stop when they ran into the rear of an even larger group of shambling zombies. They were far enough away from the zombies that they hadn’t been noticed. Yet.

Rick slowly walked up next to Glenn, and Xander heard him quietly ask if there was another way they could take to get back to the Hatchback.

“We’d have to cut through three miles of back streets and alleyways,” Glenn whispered.

And they all knew every mile would be infested with zombies.

The horde behind them was fast approaching, and the closer they got the greater the chances of the horde ahead turning around and noticing them.

Dixon tapped Xander on the shoulder and motioned at a burnt out building on their right. It didn’t have a door or windows, but it wasn’t out in the open. Xander tapped Shane on his shoulder and pointed to the building. He was already trailing behind Dixon when Shane got Rick and Glenn’s attention.

The carbonized interior of the building made what it used to be unrecognizable. The floor and the walls had turned into charcoal and ash. At least the burnt smell drowned out the stink of decay outside.

The group moved as far back into the building as they could to avoid being seen through the dark space they huddled in. They could still see outside well enough, and saw when the first horde attracted the attention of the second, and when both merged into one giant collection of rotting corpses.

They’d been trapped in the burned building for hours, and the sun was beginning to set. The sky grew darker and darker every minute, and so did the group’s mood. The horde outside had thinned, but too many (Xander gave up counting them when he reached two hundred) still lingered in front of the building where they hid. 

“We should wait until morning,” Rick said in a low voice.

He and Shane were at the back of the building hunched over, forehead to forehead, whisper yelling at each other.

“Forget that!” Shane said. “I’m not waiting for those things to wander over and tear us apart!”

Dixon sat on the soot covered floor with his back against the wall and his crossbow on his lap. His eyes were closed, but Xander knew better than to believe he was asleep. Glenn peeked around the lower right corner of the ruined window. He’d smeared ash on his face to make his skin harder to notice against the building’s pitch black interior. Xander sat across from Dixon, his horseman’s ax propped against the wall beside him. 

Xander was all for staying put, but no one was asking him. Not that he wanted to get between Rick and Shane after they started going at each other. That was a straight up fool’s errand. Instead he focused on making a mental list of all the spells he knew, and tried to figure which ones could get them out of the mess they were in.

His list was tragically short.

“You think we can fight our way through hundreds of walkers before we got hundreds more coming down on us?” Rick said.

“Between the five of us we might make it clear before that happens!”

“You’re crazy!”

It was hard to see anything clearly through the darkness at the back of the building, but Xander definitely heard Shane inhale sharply. He didn’t like being called crazy.

“And you’re a fucking coward,” Shane snarled.

Except for Rick and Shane’s angry breathing, a tense silence filled the room. Even Dixon opened his eyes and watched the pair huff angrily in each other’s face. Glenn dutifully kept watch.

“Will you two calm your britches?” Xander said. “Or do I have to come over there and…”

Both men stopped glaring at each other long enough to turn and glare at Xander.

“And, uh, give you a very stern talking to.”

Xander looked away a pretended to be interested in the wall Dixon was propped against. Which is how he caught the bastard smiling and chuckling noiselessly at him. Xander narrowed a nasty look at him, but Dixon just shrugged and closed his eyes again.

Glenn came away from the window and scuttled to the center of the room.

“Guys, I think something’s got the walkers’ attention. They’re moving up the street. Slow, but they’re leaving.”

They all went to the window, and sure enough, the zombies were moving away from the building. Only about a hundred or so shuffled around aimlessly nearby.

“So we got a choice to make,” Shane said after they all moved to the back of the room. “We wait until they thin out some more, and make a break. Or, we stay the night and hope they’re cleared out by morning.”

Xander was still for waiting until morning. It was near dark and he didn’t like the idea of running around in a zombie infested city at night. The zombies can see about as well at night as they do during the day, but Xander’s depth perception in the dark was Magoo levels of garbage.

Ultimately the choice was Rick’s, and Xander watched him quietly mull over their options. He looked out through the window before he sighed and said, “We go. But careful. Quiet. Let’s avoid fighting if we can.”

Of course it went to hell.

The group headed back the way they came and dispatched a handful of zombies without attracting attention. Xander almost believed luck was on their side until they turned the corner and ran smack dab into another horde. It could have been the original horde that chased them away from the van, but who could tell? At its center it looked like something was being torn apart. Bits of pink gore was flung over the undead crowd like confetti. Many zombies on the edges of the horde scrabbled for their share of meat, but unfortunately, not all were preoccupied with fighting over scraps. A dozen or so caught sight of the scavengers the moment they come around the corner.

“Fuck!” Shane said.

It was like a silent rumor spread through the horde, and the scuttlebutt was, ‘Suppertime! Come and get it!’. Soon a flood of undead staggered towards them. The zombies in the early stages of decay ran. At that point the group had no choice but wage a running battle through the horde.

Xander took the head off four zombies in a single swing with his double bladed ax, shifted his stance and cut two more in half with a second swing. Killing zombies was easy, even in big numbers, compared to vampires and demons. The latter wanted to avoid getting hit. Zombies not so much. Another big advantage Xander had was he didn’t have to worry about scratches or non-lethal bites. He just had to make sure he didn’t get dog-piled.

Glenn darted around, avoided grasping hands and stabbed rotting skulls with his knife. Dixon concentrated on picking off the faster moving zombies with his crossbow before they got too close, and poked the occasional zombies in the head with a loose arrow when necessary. Shane and Rick fought back to back even while on the move. They swung their axes in manic flurries, yet managed to avoid getting in each other’s way. It was impressive, and a little weird, to watch the two work so well as a team.

They fought their way back to the delivery van after leaving dozens of dead-dead in their wake. The alley that brought them to van was full of zombies, and Xander knew it was going to be the most dangerous leg of their journey. And he was right.

“Aw, god damn!”

They were half through the alley when Shane cried out. Xander had been a few feet ahead using the spike on his ax to destroy a zombie’s brain, so he didn’t see what happened. When he looked back Shane was struggling with two zombies as a third bit and tore into his shoulder.

The others turned and watched in horror as the zombie ripped through Shane’s flesh.

“Shane! Goddammit, no!” Rick cried out, his voice full of anguish and loss.

“Go!” Shane shouted at them as he blew the head off one of the zombies.

Rick hesitated, and for a moment it looked like he was about to break towards Shane.

“I said get the fuck outta here!” Shane screamed at them, his face twisted in pain as the zombie that bit him gnawed at his shoulder. 

Rick cursed before he, Glenn, and Dixon took off down the alley. Rick roaring angrily as they fought back zombies every step of the way.

Xander ran towards Shane. 

He didn’t like or trust the guy, and Xander was no hero, but when Shane told them to leave him behind that pretty much meant Xander had to save him. Because even after all these years, after all the death and misery he’d seen, Xander still asked himself when hard choices had to be made: 

What would Buffy do?

Xander poked the biter which allowed Shane to twist around and shoot the remaining zombie through the eye.

“Let’s go!” Xander said.

Shane looked at him for a beat before he nodded. Xander had to slow his own pace to make sure Shane kept up with him, but they managed to get some distance between them and the zombie parade that fill the alleyway behind them wall-to-wall. It was another spot of luck that Rick and the others took out all the zombies ahead of them, otherwise escaping unscathed would have been impossible.

By the time they exited the alley Rick and the others were long gone. Catching up with them was out of the question, especially with Shane’s wound slowing him down more and more with each passing second. Worse still, the gunshots had attracted zombies from all over the area.

Who knew such a small city could have so many zombies?

“Over there,” Shane said.

He pointed out a few freshly put down zombies on the sidewalk across the street from them. Guessing that’s where the others went, Xander and Shane followed the grisly trail. The path they took was familiar enough Xander was confident they were headed back to the city limits, but he didn’t think they’d get there before nightfall. Xander thought it might be better to find somewhere they could lay low.

“Why?” Shane asked when Xander brought it up.

“What if they aren’t waiting for us? You want to be out in the open with no escape plan when those things catch up to us?”

Shane looked like he wanted to argue, but his breathing was raspy and he looked extremely pale.

Xander cursed when he realized Shane was already turning. He had to get them somewhere safe if he wanted any chance at saving him. Xander looked around their immediate surroundings. All the nearby buildings were either burnt-out husks, or heavily damaged in some way. There was a wooded area nearby, but an enclosed space would better reinforce the defenses he put up around them while Shane’s body purified.

“Just leave me,” Shane croaked out.

“Can’t do that, big guy,” Xander replied as he continued to scan the area.

“Idiot.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Wait.

Further down the road Xander spotted a shed next to the burnt out shell of what used to be a trailer home. The shed itself only had minor scorch marks, but otherwise it looked sound. With the sun almost set, it would have to do.

Xander put an arm around Shane and pulled him towards the shed.

“What are you doing?” Shane’s voice was weak and his question was barely above a whisper.

“Getting to that shed over there.”

“The hell’s that gonna protect us?”

Xander didn’t answer. It took them five minutes to reach the shed because Xander literally had to drag Shane the last fifty feet. He set Shane down and ran up to the shed, which seemed to be the same kind of modular structure as the trailer home next to it, and was half the size of a one car garage. An old, rusted padlock was on the door, and after uttering a few words in old Sumerian Xander had it unlocked in under three seconds. He slowly opened the door and looked inside. To his relief there was just a workbench at the other end of the shed, woodworking equipment hanging form hooks on the walls, and half-completed wooden furniture scattered around on the floor. 

He tried the light switch by the door but no lights came on. The shed’s only source light came through the small rectangular skylight and a narrow window over the workbench. Once the sun went down they’d have to use flashlights to see with.

When he went back to gather up Shane, Xander saw a good number of zombies were coming right for them, but still far enough away he’d have plenty of time to set up their defenses.

Once inside, Xander used the slide latch to lock them in—just in case. Then he placed his hand on the door and cast the strongest warding spell he knew. When he felt a bubble shaped barrier form around the shed he pushed as much power into it as he dared. Once he finished he quickly joined Shane in front of the workbench.

Shane was on his back, unconscious and barely breathing. His skin was a sickly yellowish-green color now, and Xander figured they had ten minutes before the infection was irreversible. He dug into his bag and took out a small pouch with four rings inside. The rings were forged from pure silver, and each had a tiny garnet setting. The runes engraved inside the bands were there to help anchor spells to them. Xander took one of the rings and squeezed it tightly in his hand as he spoke the words of power needed to imbue the blood purification blessing into it. 

Again, like with the unlocking spell, the purification spell was a fairly simple one—if you’re Willow Rosenberg. Xander, on the other hand, had to be very careful as he performed the incantation, or he risked using way too much of his own life force. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to cast until he fully recovered, which could take weeks, or months depending on how badly he screwed up.

Xander was breathing like he’d ran a marathon when he was through. He inspected the ring and smiled with pride when he sensed he successfully performed the blessing. He looked at Shane and was surprised to see the man stared back at him with yellow, bloodshot eyes.

_Damn. That’s going to make this harder_ , Xander thought.

“I need some of your blood,” Xander said.

“So you can do some hoodoo on me?” Even though Shane looked and sounded like he was on death’s door, the mockery in his voice came out loud and clear.

“That’s right.”

Shane snorted then pulled his service weapon with his uninjured arm and tried to hand it to Xander.

“Just finish me, alright.”

“Sure,” Xander said, taking the gun and carefully placing it out of Shane’s reach. “But first let me take some of your blood as a memento of how kind and openhearted you’ve been to me since we met.”

“Fuck you.”

“C’mon, what have you got to lose? It’s just a little blood.”

“Why you even askin’?”

Xander sighed, he knew what he was going to say would go over like a lead balloon.

“I need your conscious consent or the blessing could become a curse.”

“Bullshit.”

“Dude, you are about to turn into a walker right here, right now! So, give me your stupid blood, and stop being an enormous pain in the ass!”

Shane fell silent, then after a moment he shrugged weakly. “Fine.”

Xander quickly covered the ring in Shane’s blood and held it in his open palm, then placed his other hand over the wound on Shane’s shoulder and began to chant. He shuddered when he felt how far the infection spread throughout Shane’s body. Half his internal organs were failing and right on the edge of necrosis. The ring would disinfect Shane’s blood, but it couldn’t repair the damage the infection had done to his lungs, kidneys, and heart. After a moment’s deliberation, Xander sent a little bit of his life force into Shane to bolster his natural healing. It was a coin flip if it’d work or not.

The newly fashioned purification ring felt warm in Xander’s palm when he was done with the binding, though the warmth would vanish once its intended wearer put on the ring. Shane gasped and almost instantly lost consciousness when the ring started to remove the impurities in his body. His skin was already returning to normal, and so was his breathing. Xander expected him to be out for at least three or four hours considering how advanced the infection had been.

“Bothers and Sisters, let the purification begin,” Xander said before he collapsed beside Shane and went into a deep sleep.


	2. Life Hacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane and Xander spend quality time together.

When Xander woke up he was tied to one of the sturdier wood chairs in the shed. It took him about three seconds to figure out who tied him up, and why. The most egregious part about it? What made Xander want to kick Shane’s groin up into his intestines was: the son of a bitch used Xander’s own rope!

“Wow. Are you kidding me?” Xander said. “I mean, are you frakking kidding me, right now?”

Shane sat on top of the work bench, gun in hand, with one of his legs hanging over the edge and the other folded close to his torso. He’d taken off his Police cap and placed it on the bench beside him.

“What did you do to me?” Shane asked.

“Do to you? I saved your dumb, hick life, is what I did!”

Shane jumped off the work bench and approached Xander, his expression unreadable. Not that Xander cared to know what was going on in the ungrateful bastard’s head. He was too pissed to care!

“I should be dead,” Shane said. Then he raised his gun and pressed the barrel square against the center of Xander’s forehead. “How am I not a walker right now?”

Xander eye crossed and stared at where the gun dug into his skin. He swallowed.

“Whoa, hey, man. Let’s not get cra—uh, dangerous here. Okay?”

“Then answer me. How am I living?”

Xander almost—almost—answered ‘single’, but curbed the impulse.

“I told you: I saved your life.”

“With magic?”

“That is correct.”

Shane frowned before he pulled back the hammer on his pistol. “The truth.”

“I am telling you the truth,” Xander said.

The two stared at each other for a pants-wettingly long time before Shane finally pulled the gun away from Xander’s head.

“That’s bullshit. Ain’t no way magic’s real.”

Xander had just finished breathing a sigh of relief when his smart mouth decided to get him into trouble again.

“I know, right? Next thing you know people’ll be claiming dead people are coming back to life.”

“Hey, watch it.”

Xander closed his eye and took a deep breath. He needed to calm down, but his blood was boiling. The being tied up thing he could let go of, but Shane putting a gun to his head crossed a line Xander hadn’t realized he’d drawn. He began concentrating on the gun. Feeling it out, discovering all the moving parts; and when he learned enough about the weapon, Xander built up and focused the very first magic Willow taught him on the firing pin. 

“Why can’t I get this ring off my hand?”

Xander glared at him and said, “It’s not supposed to come off.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, the last thing you want is to lose a blessed item like that one at the wrong time. It’s spelled to loosen when you gain weight, and tighten when you lose weight. The only way it comes off is if you cut off your finger, and even then it won’t leave the finger.”

Shane absorbed what Xander said as he stared at the ring.

“And it stopped me from changing? How?”

“It cleans all the impurities from you blood, including infections.”

“Impossible. Fucking impossible.”

Xander struggled not to roll his eye. He was close to warping the firing pin in Shane’s gun, the last thing he should do was antagonize him before he was done. First thing’s first: disarm, then mock mercilessly.

Shane’s eyes suddenly shifted to Xander, and Xander didn’t like what he saw in them.

“Did magic cause all the shit that’s happened?”

That had been a question the Slayer Organization tried to answer ever since the outbreak started. When Xander was last in the know, no one had it figured out yet. Of course, surviving was the top priority in those early days. Deeper analysis had to wait until the castle and palace locations were secured, and all the slayers on assignment were brought back home.

“No one knows why zombies are a thing. I mean, they’ve always been a thing, but the fleshing eating and everybody is already infected thing, is new.”

A surprised looked crossed Shane’s face. “What do you mean, “Everybody is already infected?””

“Exactly how it sounds. I’ve seen people die who were never bit or scratched, turn. The only way that’s possible is if they were already infected.”

Shane rubbed the top of his head and turned away. He went over to the workbench, placed his hands, gun still in hand, on the surface and bowed his head.

“Why?” he asked after a time.

“Like I said: no one knows how this all started.”

Shane turned back around. The look in his eyes was different, less hostile, and the sudden change caused Xander to lose focus on the pin.

“Why did you save me?”

The question caught Xander by surprise. “Uh, well, because it was the right thing to do. I guess.”

Shane looked at the purification ring and said, “But giving me this ring was a big deal, right?”

“Not like we’re engaged or anything,” Xander said.

“Stop being a little shit and answer the question. What did it cost you to give me this thing?”

Xander looked away.

The rings were hard to come by, that was true. It took mage smithies months to forge just one, and that’s assuming you could get your hands on silver that was above five nines fine to begin with. As far as Xander knew only twenty rings had ever been made.

“You told us to run. To leave you to die alone.” Xander looked at Shane. “Personally, I think on your best day you’re still a giant douche canoe. But maybe, someplace deep, deep… deep inside you, there might be a half decent guy fighting to get out.

Xander shrugged as much as could with his arms tied behind his back. “And Carl would cry if you died. For some strange reason the kid likes you.”

Shane watched Xander silently for several beats before he holstered his gun then came over and untied Xander from the chair.

Xander was in the middle of rubbing circulation back into his limbs when Shane tossed him his pack.

“You use hocus pocus to keep the walkers away, too?” he asked after retrieving his police cap.

Xander reached into his pack and tore into one of the cartons of granola bars. He’d used a lot of energy and cast too many big spells in one day. One or two he’d be fine, more than that, and he was lucky if he didn’t pass out from low blood sugar.

He scarfed down three bars before he answered Shane. 

“It’s call a ward, and yes,” he said. 

“Huh.”

“What?” Xander asked after he took a drink from his canteen.

“Did you pick that van’s lock with magic?”

Xander sighed. He knew where this line of questioning was headed. “Yeah.”

“What else can you do?”

“That’s personal. Which is to say none of your business.”

Shane went quiet and Xander watched him closely. He hoped Shane got the message getting more out of Xander was going to require more trust than he’d earned. And Shane wasn’t off to the best start in that regard.

“Well, anyway, looks like most of the geeks are gone. We can do the ones left and head back to the camp.”

“Great. Four hours of trying to stay ahead of zombies on the road. I am overjoyed.”

Shane unbolted the lock and opened the door. Morning light flooded the space, and so did the smell of rot and feces. Xander looked at his watch and realized he’d been unconscious all night. 

Outside, six new-ish looking zombies clawed at the invisible barrier around the shed like mimes that recently crawled out of their graves.

“You need to lower the thing for us to get past?”

“Ward. No, we can go right through, the zombies can’t.”

Shane looked doubtful. He walked up to zombies, raised the mortise chisel he took from the shed and poked each one in the head.

“Hey,” Shane said as he took down the last zombie, “why do you call them zombies?”

“Guess I’m just old-fashioned.”

In the thirty minutes it took them to reach where they left the Hatchback Shane had said more words to Xander than in all the time Xander had been at the camp. He mostly asked questions about magic. Shane, it turned out, was a more curious man than Xander had given him credit for. He chalked it up to Shane’s ex-profession. 

Xander wasn’t an expert at the craft by any means. According to Willow he was close to being an intermediate, but that gave him enough know-how to give Shane a fairly educated explanation of magic. Still, Xander remembered Shane wasn’t as dumb as he sometimes acted, and knew he had to careful not to give away anything that hinted at what he was truly capable of.

“Can you fly?”

“What? No!”

“Ain’t you a witch? Witches fly.”

“I am not a…” Xander stopped walking for a second before he resumed following behind Shane. “Yeah, okay. Technically, I am a witch. And also, technically, witches do fly, but I can’t. That’s like super-witch magic.”

Shane made a sound and Xander struggled to recognize what it was. Then he realized Shane had laughed. It sounded weird and creepy, and Xander wasn’t sure he liked it. He’d heard vampires laugh like that when they killed people.

“Oh, yeah? What else can super-witches do you can’t?”

“Nice try, pal.”

Shane turned and backward walked when he said, “Damn. You figured me out. I’m just trying to reckon this new shit you dumped on me. At least tell me if there’s more magic people out there that can help us survive?”

Xander pressed his lips together and frowned. Shane did come off sincere, but who knew what the guy really thought? It wasn’t even a day ago when Xander suspected Shane plotted to friendly fire a couple guys in the back.

“Yeah. There is.”

Shane stopped walking and held his arms out.

“Then where are they? Why aren’t they doing anything to clean this shit up?”

 _Because all the heavy hitters are either evil and probably touching themselves watching humanity go extinct. Or back in the Europe, cleaning up the mess there_. 

But Xander didn’t say any of that to Shane.

“Before I was separated from my friends we were in contact with the military, and they told us zombie infestation was expected to reach into the billions. Billions.”

Shane dropped his arms. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we’re in an apocalypse. The Big One.” Xander caught sight of a lone zombie stumbling onto the road twenty feet behind Shane. “They are out there helping. They just aren’t helping us. Behind you.”

Shane turned and they both watched the zombie shamble closer. They resumed walking and met it halfway. Shane poked it through the temple as they passed. 

Shane seemed to be done asking questions and they walked on in silence for an hour until they ran into a group of about twenty or so zombies.

The zombies wandered in mindless circles, and most of them looked like they’d been dead and decaying for months. Their numbers blocked the entire width of the road and all the way to the surrounding woods on either side. Shane and Xander were at a far enough distance that they hadn’t been noticed yet.

“Go around?” Shane said.

Xander eyed the dense treeline. He didn’t like the idea of being surrounded by so many trees with his blind spot. He pointed to his eye-patch and Shane nodded. Xander brought out his double bladed ax and gave Shane the horseman’s ax.

At first Shane was overly cautious and flinched away whenever a zombie swiped their infectious claws at him. When Xander reminded him about the ring, Shane’s eyes lit up. The realization he didn’t need to worry about being turned from any bite or scratch allowed him to go on the attack more aggressively.

They didn’t work together as smoothly as Shane and Rick did, but they did manage to stay out of each other’s way and watch each other’s back well enough to take down all the zombies, and clear the road. 

“Thanks,” Shane said suddenly after they’d been walking for a while.

“For?” Xander asked between bites of his sixth granola bar.

“The ring. Thanks.”

Xander smiled at Shane’s back then finished off the rest of the granola bar.

“Holy shit!”

Glenn jumped down from the RV and ran towards them when they entered the camp. His shout brought some of the others campers out of their tents to see what was going on. Rick, Lori and Carl were one of the last to come out and they practically tackled Shane to the ground when they saw him.

Glenn pulled Xander away until they stood outside Xander’s ten person tent.

“I thought you were dead for sure,” Glenn told Xander.

“Aw, were you worried about me, pizza-pie kid?

“Hey, fuck you! I really freaked out when I looked back and you’d disappeared! What the hell happened to you?”

Xander looked over at Shane who was being fawned over by the Grimes family. In fact there was quite a crowd gathering around him. Shane was even doing that weird thing where he smiled.

“I went back for Deputy Dog.”

Glenn shot a nervous glance at Shane. “About that… how is he… you know? We all saw him get bit.”

“What? No,” Xander said. “You must have been seeing things.”

Glenn looked skeptical. “The thing ripped a chunk outta his shoulder.”

“Well, obviously not, or he’d be Deputy Dead Dog right now.”

“I guess so,” Glenn conceded, but a ring of doubt rang clear in his words.

Xander smiled and suppressed the guilt that threatened to show on his face.

Xander didn’t make friends easily and Glenn was the first one he’d made in a long time. The kid reminded Xander of how he used to be before he found the first job he was really good at. Before Anya. 

There were so many times he wanted to give Glenn a ring. Every time the kid volunteered to go on supply run alone made Xander want to shake him and scream, “Stop! You don’t have anything to prove, you idiot!” and then shove a ring on his finger.

But Xander always backed out before his guilt and sense of camaraderie made him do something he’d regret. Revealing his magic was dangerous. If the wrong person ever discovered what he could do… well, he’d seen what happened to witches in the post apocalyptic world they lived in now, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Hey,” Glenn said, bringing Xander out his dark memories. “I’m glad you made it back. You’re the only other half-decent card player in the camp.”

Xander wiped a fake tear from the corner of his good eye. “Oh, Glenn, I’m the only good card player in the camp.”

“I got a fifty granola bar bankroll. Put up, or shut up!”

“Sure. I don’t have any problem taking free money from little kids.”

Glenn laughed. 

“You prick.”

Later that night, when he was alone on watch, Xander walked around the perimeter of the entire camp and set up a boarder barrier. It was less effective than the ward he could put around a solid structure like the shed, but it still had enough juice to bounce a medium-sized horde off of it. With the added bonus of acting as an early warning system.

When he came back from from completing the boarder, Shane was waiting for him by Dale’s RV.

“Let me guess. You did one of them wards on the camp.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Shane smirked. “I guess I know why you’re always taking night watch now.”

Xander ignored him and climbed on top of the RV. He sat in one of the folding chairs Dale set up under a red, plastic umbrella and made himself comfortable. The night was impenetrable after a certain distance from the camp, so Xander muttered the words to a night vision spell. With only one eye his range wasn’t as good as it could’ve been, but he was able to see clearly through the dark for at least ten meters.

A minute later Shane joined Xander on the RV and took the chair beside him.

“M’elp ya?” Xander said while he stared out into the darkness.

Shane opened the cooler between them and took out a bottle of beer that had been chilled in the lake all day.

“I’m from Kentucky, not Texas, you little shit.”

“Hard to tell you hicks apart, really.”

Shane shook his head then twisted the cap off his beer and took a swig.

“I should have shot you.”


	3. Tip of the Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane wants to be buddies. Xander thinks Shane is off to a bad start.

When they went back for the delivery van, they went back prepared.

The bodies of the zombies Shane and Xander took down on their way back to the camp were still scattered all over the road where they left them.

“You guys took down this many walkers?” Dixon asked.

Xander was too busy trying not to throw-up to take close note of how impressed Dixon sounded when he asked.

“They were pretty decayed when we ran across them,” Xander said as he cut into the stomach of one of the juicier looking zombies. “So they were slow. Easy pickings—nope.” 

Xander vomited on the asphalt behind him.

Xander, Dixon, Shane, Andrea and Glenn each brought a set of clothes they never wanted to wear again and smeared them with the entrails. They intended to ride in the Hatchback again so they wrapped the guts-treated garments in garbage bags and put them in the trunk, then set off for Concord.

They changed into the gory camo after they got to the blocked off road leading into Concord. The group didn’t see many zombies as they walked through the outskirts, but their numbers increased drastically once they reached the town proper.

The camo did what it was supposed to. They were invisible to the zombies meandering throughout the town. However the group still moved with caution, and were careful to make as little noise as possible.

“This is fucked up,” Shane muttered under his breath as he nervously eyed all the zombies that staggered past them. In one hand he lugged a gas can filled with fuel, and held a machete in his free hand. 

“Mondo creepy. I think I kinda hate Rick for coming up with this cockamamie scheme,” Xander groused, then turned his head and vomited again. 

Xander carried a handle-less car battery in both hands and was ready to drop it and grabbed his ax at the first sign of trouble. Ultimately, though, he and Shane counted on Andrea, Glenn and Dixon who were all strapped with their usual gear, to protect them during those precious few seconds it would take to drop their burden and arm themselves.

By the time they reached the van, Xander didn’t have anything left in his stomach.

They changed the van’s car battery and filled the tank with gas as quickly and quietly as possible. Glenn kept checking the sky as if he expected a spontaneous rainstorm to ruin their day, but the day stayed sunny and clear. When they finished, the group tossed out their guts smeared clothes before packing into the van. The only attention they attracted was when Shane started up the engine, and as they drove it back to the city limits. 

Operation Bringing Home the Bacon went down without a hitch.

When the weather started getting colder Glenn said it could snow soon, and the camp wasn’t prepared for how cold it would get.

“Maybe we should move farther down south?” Rick suggested to the other members of the so-called inner council. 

That’s what Xander called them in his head, anyway.

Rick, Shane, Glenn, Lori, Andrea, Amy, and Dale all stood in a loose circle discussing what they planned to do when the weather turned on them. This was the first time Xander had been offered a seat at the table, the table being anywhere within twenty feet of Dale’s RV. He suspected Shane had something to do with his sudden inclusion. 

“All these people humpin’ five hundred miles to Florida... sounds great,” Shane said.

“I didn’t say Florida, I meant south,” Rick said with obvious patience.

“What about the roads?” Lori asked. “How are we going to travel with so many cars blocking everything?”

“We take back roads,” suggested Amy.

“That’s risky. One bad patch of dirt road and we could lose our transportation,” Andrea said.

There were nods all around. None of them wanted to be walking out in the open with zombies under every bush waiting to bite their ankles.

Shane rubbed his head then asked Glenn, “How long you think we got until it might snow?”

“It might not—but my best guess is the next three or four weeks.”

“What’re you thinking?” Rick asked.

“We could head for Fort Benning.”

“Why there?”

“We heard it was secured not long after Atlanta was bombed,” Lori answered.

“Can we get there before it snows?”

“It’s about a hundred miles from here,” Shane said. “If we find decent roads we can drive there in a couple of hours. If we have to walk, we’d be lucky to get there in a month.”

Rick shook his head. “Like you said: all these folks making that trip is gonna be difficult.”

“A-yep.”

“Before we do anything we should stock up,” Andrea said. “Gather firewood, water bottles, and as much food as we can get stored away.”

“And gas,” Glenn added.

“Right, and gas. Then we need to figure out if we have enough supplies to wait out the winter, or get all the way to Fort Benning.”

“If we do decide to go for Benning, I think getting our hands on a cargo trailer or two might be a good idea,” Lori said.

“We’re going to need chains for our tires, as well,” Dale said.

The meeting ended with everyone in agreement as far as securing more provisions went. As Xander was walking away Shane caught up with him. Xander was headed towards Carol so they could start doing laundry. 

“You were awful quiet back there,” Shane said as he kept pace with Xander.

“Seems like you guys got it covered,” Xander said.

“And you don’t have any opinions at all?”

Xander turned and looked at Shane. “What are you on about?”

Shane stopped and so did Xander.

“Look, I get you want to keep your Harry Potter shit secret, but if you have some way to help us with it, you need to speak up.”

Shane had a point. Xander knew how he could protect the camp from cold weather, and on the road, if it came to that. Except, there was no way to do it without telling the camp everything. Xander just didn’t trust most them enough to do that. 

Keeping his magic under wraps still felt like the right thing to do for the time being.

“I hear you, okay? But I don’t think most of these people are ready to hear magic is real.”

“I handled it fine.”

Xander sighed and simultaneously tilted his head at Shane.

Shane rubbed his temple with his thumb and said, “Eventually.”

“After I saved your life. Twice. Oh, yeah! And after you put a gun to my head!”

“Fine. Then talk to me. Tell what you can do to help, and I’ll sell it to the others somehow.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Xander looked around and saw campers doing chores all over the camp. Andrea and Amy were teaching the kids how to tie lines, Rick and Lori were cleaning guns near their tent. Carol was setting up to do laundry with Jacqui. No one seemed to be paying attention to him and Shane, but Xander didn’t want to take any chances they’d be overheard. He waved at Shane to follow him to a more secluded part of the camp.

“Look,” Xander said once they were alone, “most of the spells I know are either loud and obvious, or need cooperation.”

“Gimme an example. I’m just a dumb hillbilly, after all,” Shane said.

“Settle down,” Xander replied and rolled his eye. “I’m saying I can set up a barrier around the camp that’ll keep out the snow. But it’s gonna look real suspicious when the area around the camp is cold and covered in snow and inside the camp it feels like summer.”

“Then tell the camp what you can do!”

“They’re not ready, and…”

“And, what?”

“You don’t know how people are going to react when they find out about magic.”

“I think these people will be grateful not to freeze to death.”

Xander shook his head. He walked a little ways and leaned against a nearby tree then put his hands in his pant’s pockets.

“That’s not for sure. When I first got back to the States after the outbreak I wasn’t alone. Another witch came with me to get our people back home. Something went wrong. We got our friends out, but we got stuck.”

Xander turned his head up and looked at the branches of the tree he leaned against. Its leaves were turning yellow and brown; they would be falling soon.

“We knew help wouldn’t be coming. Hell, we didn’t want it to. So we decided to make it back home ourselves. We helped where we could along the way, using magic to save people... then some of the survivors we helped got scared.

Xander looked at Shane. “They thought magic caused the outbreak. That we caused it.”

“What happened?”

Xander looked away. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Fine. Why’d you save me if you’re so scared of being found out?”

Xander humphed and smiled to himself. “That’s me. Always doing the stupid thing.”

Shane let out a disappointed sigh, and then they stood quietly as the distance sounds from the camp and the fall wind drifted through the trees.

“Okay. You got bad shit that happened to ya because of your magic, I’ll respect that,” Shane finally said. “But when it hits the fan, and this camp needs you, will you do everything in your power to help?”

Xander didn’t answer for a long time, but when he did he looked at Shane and said, “I’ll do what I can, but after that I can’t promise I’ll stick around. I promised myself I’d get back to my friends—my family—one day.” Xander’s expression hardened. “I won’t let myself be killed.”

“Copy that.”

Half the camp was for heading to Fort Benning when Shane and Rick brought it to them. The other half wanted to wait out winter, and hoped the government was able to rescue them after the weather cleared. It was a hot topic of debate in the camp over the following few days. 

To Xander waiting for the government was an iffy prospect. Not because the government collapsed, Xander knew they were still around in some capacity, Riley said as much. The president was even alive and running the country from the Deep Underground Command Center. But Xander had serious doubts they’d be up to mounting nation-wide rescue missions any time soon.

“This Riley guy, is he reliable? I mean, do you believe him about the government still standing?”

“The guy makes Rick look like Dixon he’s so morally upright,” Xander told Shane as they sat on watch together.

“Then help could be coming?”

Xander told Shane not to count on it.

“Why?”

“They know everyone is infected and there’s no cure. I figure they’ll have to come up with a way to deal with that before they try and reestablish norms. Plus, you know, they screwed up royally after the outbreak first hit, and they don’t want to do it a second time.”

“Any chance they’ll just leave us to rot out here?”

Xander thought about that a lot since they lost contact with Riley. Willow was sure he was still alive, him and his unit, since one of the first things they did was establish a psychic connection with the unit’s witch. For some reason they just couldn’t communicate. It was possible Riley had been ordered to cut off that communication by his commanders. Which made sense because the world’s governments never cared for how The Slayer Organization operated, and weren’t shy about letting them know it. The months of radio silence that followed, and lack of action on the military's part, led many in the Organization to think governments around the world were waiting for the plague to burn itself out before they made a move.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe.”

Shane stewed after that. Xander noticed Shane stewed a lot, so he didn’t pay it any mind as he watched the dark for zombies.

“What’d you do before all this?” Shane asked suddenly.

“That’s complicated. But before, before, I did construction back in California.”

“No shit. You don’t look the type. That how you lose your eye?”

“You sure are chatty tonight,” Xander said.

“Honestly? I’m trying to get you to trust me some.”

Xander looked away from the darkness and at Shane.

“You… what?”

Shane shrugged. “I ain’t really got to know you and you ain’t got to know me, either, so I figure if I want you to trust me…” Shane let the sentence trail away then shrugged again.

“Trusting you, which is a stretch, doesn’t mean I’ll trust anybody else here.”

“Not even Glenn?”

Xander looked away. “I trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust you.”

“Then why haven’t you told him?”

“What makes you think I haven’t?”

Shane laughed. “Kid still thinks I didn’t get bit back in Concord, and I sure as shit did.” 

Xander didn’t reply. Shane bringing up Glenn riled up guilt he’d been carrying for a while.

“Think he’ll break up with you if he finds out?”

“Break up?”

“C’mon, no judgment or nothing, but the whole camp sees how much time you two spend alone together.”

Xander grimaced and aimed a side-eye at Shane. “What? He’s a kid!”

Shane laughed again. “Ain’t much younger than you!”

“If I’m going to hook up with a man, I prefer them older. Much, much older.”

“Like Dale?”

“That youngster? Older.”

Xander laughed at Shane’s bemused expression then went back to looking in the dark.


	4. How-To for Dummies and Other Idiots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander and Shane are more alike than Xander cares to admit. And, yes, Glenn is a snack.

When the first snow came it only lasted half a day, but that was long enough to cover the ground in an inch of snow. By the time sun went down the temperature dropped to ten below, and everyone who slept in a tent had a very hard time staying warm. Except Xander and Glenn. 

Xander shielded their tents against the elements regularly since they joined the camp. He spent a lot of time in Glenn’s tent to play cards, or hang out and reminisce about their misspent young adult-hoods, so he was free to come and go without anyone thinking it was unusual. Shane realized what he’d done after Glenn came out of his tent one morning looking well-rested and chipper. Shane literally grabbed Xander and “requested” that he ‘Do up his tent the same.’ 

Reluctantly, Xander complied. 

He didn’t feel all that worried anyone would notice the spell on Shane’s tent, since Shane lived in it alone, and probably wouldn’t be having overnight guests. The guy was too hung up on Lori, and she wasn’t going to accept any sexy-time invitations from him anytime soon. 

Same with Glenn. The kid was making eyes at Amy, but she seemed oblivious to his cute, but clumsy flirtations. Xander almost didn’t have the heart to tell him she probably thought they were a couple. 

Almost.

“What! Tell me you’re joking? Jesus!”

Xander struggled not to laugh. “Afraid so. The whole camp thinks you’re my main squeeze.”

The two carried buckets of water from the quarry to Carol and Dixon who wanted to make a stew from rabbits Dixon caught during one of his days long hunts. Everyone in the camp was looking forward to eating something besides granola and trail mix again.

“No wonder none of the women look twice at me.”

“I know! And you’re such a snack, too!”

“Oh, you’re just loving this, aren’t you?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Glenn shook his head. “This isn’t funny, man! You have any idea how long it’s been since I got laid?”

“Uh, we both know you’ve never gotten laid. C’mon now.”

“Fuck you. And hearing all the marrieds going at it every night is not helping!”

“They do get vocal, don’t they?”

“Are you going to help me clear this up?”

“Are you saying there’s no hope for us?” Xander said with mock hurt in his voice.

“I’m serious! Help me out!”

“Like a handy, or…?”

“Dude. Why are you like this?”

Xander finally laughed so hard he almost dropped his bucket.

“Okay, okay! How do you intend to have me help reaffirm your hetero, kid?”

“Couldn’t you, like, make a move on Andrea.”

Xander nodded. “She is very, very attractive, no doubt.”

“Then go for it!”

“Except, I’m pretty confident she has a thing for Shane.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s obvious. If the idiot wasn’t so dumb they’d be sharing a tent already.”

“Well, throw your hat in the ring. Fight for her!”

Xander snickered. “Maybe I should pursue Amy. A little young, but real cute.”

“You are such an asshole.”

Xander looked at Glenn and said, “Is that any way to talk to your boyfriend?”

“I hate you,” Glenn said before he stomped away.

Xander tossed his head back a let out an over-the-top evil laugh.

Xander was still chuckling to himself when he entered the camp and saw Ed and Andrea in each other’s personal space exchanging semi-quiet words that grew louder and louder as the conversation went on. Amy, Jacqui, and Carol stood behind Andrea and looked on with stiff backs and worried expressions.

Xander noticed Dixon was gone. He brought his gaze back to the group and glared at the Ed, knowing the only reason he decided to start something was because no men were around.

“Why don’t you go sit on your ass and do nothing like always, instead of telling us what we should be doing!” Andrea said.

"Hey, don't think I won't knock you on your ass, just 'cause you're some college-educated cooze, all right?" Ed sneered.

“Andrea, don’t,” Amy said as she tried to pull her sister away from Ed.

“No, I’m sick of this asshole! He thinks he can come here and act like he’s in charge even though he doesn’t do anything but smoke cigarettes and use up resources, like the useless bag of dicks he is!”

“What did you say, you little bitch?”

Andrea shook off Amy’s hold and stepped even closer to Ed. When Andrea went up that close to Ed it really hit Xander just how tall Ed was. He was one of the tallest people in the camp and towered over Andrea easily.

“You fucking heard me.”

Carol, who’d been silent since Xander arrived, turned away from the table she used to prepare the ingredients for the stew and hurried over to Ed.

“Come on, honey, let’s go to our tent,” she said.

Ed ignored her and took the cigarette in his mouth then flicked it into Andrea’s face. She flinched back and that’s when he whirled around and slapped Carol across the cheek.

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

Glenn and Xander both dropped their buckets at the same time and ran towards Andrea and the others. But Shane got there first. He grabbed Ed by the shirt and tossed him several feet away from the women. When Ed hit the ground Shane was on him in an instant.

“Get off me!” Ed shouted when Shane straddled him.

Shane then proceeded to wale on Ed. He punched Ed in the face over and over until his face was bruised and covered in blood. Ed couldn’t even cry out because Shane’s attack was fast and relentless.

“Shane, stop!” Andrea cried as she held Carol back from going to help her husband.

The corner of Carol’s mouth bled and started to bruise as she cried and watched Shane get to his feet to kick Ed in the ribs.

“Please, don’t hurt him!”

“Shane, stop it right now!”

Glenn caught Xander’s eye and they wordlessly debated if they should to stop Shane. 

Xander had seen Carol’s bruises, they all did, and they knew how she got them. Carol denied he hit her, and Ed was careful to attack her when no one could see or hear him. That’s how he got away with it for so long.

Xander wanted to pull a Shane and see to it Ed never came back from a supply run. Except, like Andrea said, Ed did very little around the camp, and certainly never went on supply runs. Xander even seriously thought about making Ed not wake up one morning. He knew the spell, and like most dark magic it was easier to cast than the good stuff. But it was dark magic; and Xander remembered what flaunting the Rule of Three had done to Willow. 

Still, every time Xander saw Carol with a new bruise the risk of badness coming back at him three-fold bothered him less and less.

Xander and Glenn didn’t need to act—Andrea handed Carol off to Amy and Jacqui then pushed Shane away from Ed’s battered, motionless body. Carol got away from the women and rushed to Ed and tried to comfort him. She stroked his swollen face, sobbed and told him he would be okay.

Shane stumbled back red-faced, breathing heavily and clenching his blood covered fists. He flinched when he saw the dismayed looks Andrea and Amy gave him. He lowered his head and rubbed his hand through his hair before he started to walk away. He stopped when he caught sight of Glenn and Xander. From the look on his face, he hadn’t even noticed they were there. 

Xander wasn’t sure what expression Shane saw on Glenn’s face, but Xander tipped his head and was a second away from giving him a thumbs up.

Shane turned and stalked back to his tent.

Ed refused to let Carol or Sophia back into their tent while he licked his wounds. Xander still had Michael’s tent and gave it to Carol. Other camp members donated things like cots and bedding, as well as clothes until she could retrieve her and Sophia’s things from Ed’s tent.

Dixon came back with wild tomatoes and onions he found, and made the rabbit stew by himself. Though no one felt as excited about the meal as they were before, most of the camp members sat around the camp fire together and ate in comfortable silence. Even Carol and Sophia joined them.

Despite the subdued mood, everyone seemed to enjoy the stew and went to bed with full bellies.

Xander was on night watch for nearly an hour before Shane joined him on the RV.

Neither spoke as Shane downed four beers from the cooler. Xander knew Shane wanted to talk. He also knew the man well enough to know any attempt Xander made to strike up a conversation on his own was doomed to fail. So he waited patiently for Shane to say what was on his mind. 

“Lori’s pregnant.”

Xander winced.

“It’s mine.”

“No kidding,” Xander said before he could stop himself.

Shane looked at him. “You knew?”

Xander looked back. “Everyone knew, man,” he said.

Shane looked away. “Fuck.”

“That why you went ballistic on Ed?”

“Son of a bitch’s been deservin’ that beatin’ for a while, and you know it.”

Xander let out a quiet chuckle. “That he has.”

“She told me this morning. Told me I got nothin’ to do with the kid. Just cut me right out like I don’t mean shit!”

“Rick’s her husband,” Xander said.

“I fucking know that! But I been here the whole time taking care of her and Carl. I got them safe! Me!” Shane said in a harsh, hushed tone.

“So she owes you, is that it?”

There must have been something in Xander’s tone because Shane looked sharply over at him.

Xander looked back.

“She made her choice. Respect it.”

“That’s my fucking kid!”

“Nothing’s stopping you from being there for your kid.”

Shane opened his mouth, but Xander interrupted before he could go off again.

“As long as you’re part of this group, you’re part of that kid’s life. Don’t screw that up with your jealousy.”

Shane looked like he wanted to beat Xander’s face in. He might have if he knew what Xander really thought. Xander said jealousy out loud, but in his head he used the word obsession.

“The fuck you know about anything? Huh? Let me tell you something, you think because you can twirl your wand you’re not some half-blind roughneck too chickenshit to actually do anything useful?”

Xander held Shane’s stare for a beat before he took a breath and went on to say,

“If you’re not careful, that jealousy is going to get you killed. Or worse.”

“What’s worse than dying, shit head?”

Xander turned his head and looked up at the star-filled sky and remembered when listening to Shane talk about Lori would have hit uncomfortably close to home.

“You could lose all your friends. The people who love you.”

When Shane didn’t say anything in response Xander continued.

“Rick, Carl... they love you. I don’t know what Lori’s feeling, but Rick calls you his brother. Carl looks up to you—respects you. That ain’t nothin’.” Xander’s voice began to crack. “That love is everything.”

When Shane still didn’t say anything back, Xander cleared his throat before he finished with, “Every one you love, and every one who loves you, is right here. That makes you one of the luckiest sons of bitches on Earth. So stop whining, and appreciate what you have.”

Xander was surprised Shane didn’t haul off and punch in the face. Instead of knocking Xander’s lights out, Shane sat quietly and looked out into the darkness. He stayed that way until Rick relieved Xander and took over night watch.


	5. Social Engineering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander's day started off so well...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no good way to put this, but: I caught Covid-19 a couple of weeks ago. 
> 
> I feel tired and dizzy out of nowhere and it's pretty bad. I'm better than I was at the start, but it's still hard to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. I don't know when I'll be back to a regular release schedule, but I hope I can start writing normally again over the next few weeks.

“You’re way too good at hand-washing clothes,” Carol said.

“Live with a bunch of girls who constantly bogart all the washing machines and you learn to hand wash real quick,” Xander replied as he used a scrub brush on a pair of Dixon’s egregiously filthy jeans.

Xander, Carol, and Jacqui were doing laundry in the RV. It was the only place large enough and warm enough to fit the three of them, all the clothes that needed cleaning, and the four buckets of hot water they needed to clean them. Xander volunteered to hang the clothes inside his tent to dry. He claimed since he’d be on watch he wouldn’t be there to mind all the clothes taking up space. 

Once the clothes were in his tent, however, Xander would use a dehydrating spell and have them dried in less than ten minutes.

“Did you grow up with a lot of sisters?”

“Oh, no. I lived in a—mmm—I guess you could call it a school for extraordinary young women.”

“You were a teacher?” Jacqui asked, her voice carried a hint of surprise.

“Me? No way. I was…” Xander was about to say he was a Watcher, but smartly realized how ‘I watch young girls’ would sound. “Well, I was an... administrator. Your typical paper pusher. Heaven help anyone who wanted book learnin’ from me.”

Carol and Jacqui laughed and the three continued to wash until they ran out of clean hot water. Xander took the clothes to his tent and dried them before going out to look for something else to do. Except there wasn’t as much to do in the camp now that almost everything had been packed up for the wagon train to Fort Benning. So Xander walked a ways from camp toward the frozen lake in the quarry. He found a boulder large enough to sit on and began meditating. Breathing in the cold air and exhaling warm, until he could feel his thoughts clear.

Meditation was the hardest part of learning magic for Xander. Concentrating was never one of his strongest attributes, that’s why he had such a hard time controlling the amount of magic he used when he cast spells. Willow told him he was really good at conceptualizing spells, but when he tried to cast them, instead of letting the power flow through him like a calming breath, he let the spell out like a sneeze. Not a cute little achoo, but a gross, loud, snot and spit-filled sneeze that went everywhere.

Xander wasn’t able to meditate much since he got stuck in Cleveland with Michael. Either there was constant danger lurking around every corner, or he never felt safe enough to risk tuning out his surroundings and attain a true meditative state. Xander’s magic had suffered because of it. He hadn’t lost the strength he’d built up, but he wasn’t getting stronger like he was supposed to, either.

“Hey. Hey!”

Xander opened his eye. It had been midday and cloudy when he started to meditate, but now the sky was dark. The clouds had cleared up enough to reveal a nearly full moon. Xander took a deep breath and let it out; he felt well-rested and energetic, magic-wise. He turned and found Shane stood behind him with a dour look on his face.

Shane wore his police cap, a black knee length peacoat, a dark blue scarf, gray jeans and dark brown hiking boots. His face looked scruffier than usual because he hadn’t shaved in a while. Shane looked like he could have stepped off a GQ cover.

“What up, buttercup?” Xander chirped.

Shane gave him a squint-y eyed look then said, “Time for your watch.”

Xander stretched on the boulder before he hopped off and landed gracefully on his feet. 

“Great!”

“Why are you so fucking giddy?”

Xander smiled. “Just got done meditating. I haven’t got to do that in a long time, so I’m just straight chillin’ right now!”

Shane closed his eyes and shook his head as if to say, ‘Lord, give me strength!’

“Whatever.”

They walked back to the RV and Shane waited while Xander walked the perimeter of the camp. When Xander came back Shane didn’t bother to accuse him of setting up a barrier, instead he silently followed Xander onto the roof of the RV.

“I’ve been thinking,” Shane said.

“Uh-oh!”

“I’ve been thinking,” Shane said again. “I think you should tell Rick about your magic.”

“Rick? Why is that?”

“After the thing with Ed everybody is—”

“Scared of you?”

Shane didn’t reply right away. “Yeah. So, I think it might be a good idea to let him in on your secret. Then you two can work on a plan to get us to Fort Benning safely.”

Feeling less jovial than he was a minute before, Xander said, “Look, I told you, getting people to accept magic isn’t just tricky. It’s dangerous.”

“After all this time you think Rick ain’t gonna to do right by you?”

“I—”

“Is that what you really think? That Rick is going to turn on you?”

Xander’s good mood was officially gone. He should have known something was up the moment Shane ignored the beer in the Igloo. 

_Like, whose son even am I_? Xander berated himself.

“No,” Xander replied. “No, I don’t think that.”

“Then tell him.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Bullshit. It is simple. Give him a chance. Tell him you can help get these people to safety.”

Xander wanted to shout Shane didn’t give a crap about “these people” he only cared about Lori, the baby, and maybe Carl getting to safety. The old him would have gone right for Shane’s throat and kept tearing until he reached bone, but that was the old Xander Harris. The new Xander Harris knew better than to lash out and beat people over the head with the truth, as he saw it anyway, when he felt insecure and defensive.

“You think he won’t want me to explain how my magic works? About everything I can do?” Xander asked. “You think he won’t tell Lori? Am I supposed just trust that my secret will stay a secret then?”

“You’re fucking paranoid.”

Xander gritted his teeth as anger boiled in the pit of his stomach. It took everything in Xander not to punch Shane out of his chair.

“Your ring.”

“What about it?”

“How long before everyone in camp wants one? Think they’ll be all understanding when I say I don’t have enough for everybody?”

When Shane didn’t answer Xander couldn’t help but let a little bit of old Xander Harris slip out.

“Maybe I should hold a raffle? Put everybody’s name in your stupid cap and see what happens. Better hope Lori’s new baby gets one of the golden tickets.”

“You motherfucker,” Shane growled.

Xander and Shane glared at each other. Anger burned in Shane’s eyes, and mocking contempt glittered in Xander’s eye. 

“I oughta—”

“What? You oughta, what?” Xander asked, standing up from the folding chair.

Shane stood up as well, and the two stood face to face. Then Shane smiled and looked away towards the darkness outside the camp. Then back at Xander.

“If you lose consciousness will that ward go down?”

Xander sneered, but said in a cool voice, “No. It won’t.”

Without another word Xander and Shane climbed from the RV and returned to the same spot away from the camp they went to the day Shane first suggested going to Fort Benning.

Xander wasn’t expecting a clean fight so he was ready when Shane tried to tackle him to the ground without warning. Xander pivoted and let Shane rush past before he kicked the back of one of his knees. Shane hit the snow covered ground hard, and seemed momentarily stunned. Xander stood where he was and mockingly put his hands in his coat pockets then waited.

Shane stood up slowly and looked at Xander in way he hadn’t before: like Xander was dangerous.

Xander watched Shane’s eyes study him as he searched for an opening, for any weakness, he could exploit. When he found it, he put his fists up, rolled his shoulders and approached Xander the way one boxer would close in on another in a ring. 

Xander took his hands from his pockets and got into a stance of his own. That made Shane pause for a moment before he started forward again. Xander knew what Shane would do before he did it. It’s what everyone always did when they fought him: they attacked from his blind spot. Xander paid attention to Shane’s hips and shoulders like he was taught, and dodged the swing Shane threw from Xander’s left. Shane was fast enough that Xander missed a chance to grab his arm and had to lean back when Shane made a follow-up jab at his chest.

Angry as Xander was, he still felt calm. Calm enough that if he wanted to he could use magic to trip Shane, or hit him with enough telekinesis to render him unconscious. Xander easily might have done either of those things... if the fight had been about self-defense.

But it wasn’t.

Xander just wanted to hurt Shane, plain and simple.

Shane head faked like he was going to tackle Xander again, and Xander would have fallen for the ploy if hadn’t been paying attention to Shane’s hips. Xander twisted his torso and let Shane’s hidden punch brush past his shoulder. Then Xander lunged forward and slammed his other shoulder into Shane’s chest. Caught off guard, Shane wasn’t able to react in time when Xander sent an uppercut into his jaw. Xander quickly followed the uppercut with an elbow to Shane’s throat and caused him to choke and stagger back. Tears of pain glistened in his eyes and his face was beet red as he clutched his neck and tried to catch his breath. Xander watched without saying a word.

Shane swallowed several time before he was able to breath freely. He glared at Xander with a naked rage that only made Xander want to hurt him more. Shane kicked snow at Xander’s face. Xander turned his head to his left and put his hand up to block the debris before it hit his face. He saw Shane make another charge and got an angle to Shane’s right before he dropped down onto his left buttock and leg, spun around and swept the back of Shane’s calf, and dropped him. When Shane hit the ground Xander used the same leg to launch a kick the side of his head. Then he kicked Shane in the head again when he saw the first kick only dazed him and hadn’t knock him out.

Xander got to his feet and stood over Shane’s unconscious body. He hoped Shane was faking so he had an excuse to kick him again, but Shane was done. Xander felt indescribably disappointed by that. 

Xander took a deep breath and realized he didn’t feel the usual sense of accomplishment he had when he won a fight. Although Xander was well aware he shouldn’t be getting a swelled head because he beat up Shane. Shane was just some guy. Not a vampire, or a demon, or a slayer. 

Kicking his ass was nothing special. 

And… and Xander knew he only started the fight because he didn’t like what Shane said about trusting Rick. Xander was being paranoid. Worse than that, he was a coward. He allowed fear to stop him from doing the right thing. 

Xander could help the people here. He could easily get them somewhere safe and made sure they stayed that way. It would an obscenely easy for Xander to do, which made his reluctance to do it all the more glaring.

Yet, Xander remembered Michael. He remembered how Micheal pleaded with the people who were about to kill him that he just wanted to help them. Xander remember how Mike screamed in agony when they butchered him anyway.

Xander remembered how he made them scream, too. 

He was still waiting for the karma those screams earned him to finally find him.

Xander dragged Shane back to his tent, and then finished out his watch. 

Back in his own tent, Xander couldn’t fall asleep. He tossed and turned and replayed the fight with Shane in his head until he couldn’t ignore the guilt anymore. He even tried to meditate, but his mind was too clouded to do more than close his eye and wait for his Jiminy Cricket voice to get louder. At least the voice sounded like Willow.

When morning came Xander was still wide awake. He thought if he folded the laundry it might tire him, out of sheer boredom if nothing else, but it didn’t work. He took the clothes out of his tent and distributed them to their owners. When Xander got to Shane’s tent he hesitated to get his attention.

“Stop being a little baby child, and do your job,” Xander muttered to himself.

Xander called out to Shane and waited for him to come out. Instead of coming out, Shane told Xander to come in. For a moment Xander anticipated an ambush, then he thought maybe he deserved to get sucker punched after what he did the night before.

Xander unzipped the tent and went inside.

Shane was laying down on his cot where Xander left him. The whole left side of his face looked scraped up and slightly discolored, but not as bad as it did when Xander brought him back to his tent. Shane groaned when he sat up and swung his legs onto the ground.

“You’re a lot tougher than you look,” he said as Xander zipped up the tent.

“I’m used to fighting things bigger and stronger than me,” Xander said when turned around. “But… I shouldn’t have fought you. I was wrong to do that. I’m sorry.”

Shane winced when he got to his feet and came over to Xander who still held Shane’s laundry in his arms.

“Obviously I ain’t stronger than you.”

Xander smiled then shook his head. “Bet if we arm wrestled you’d break my hand against the table. Or if you actually landed a punch I’d get laid out pretty quick.”

Shane frowned a little at that, but didn’t say anything.

“Anyway, you were right about me being paranoid, and you were right about telling Rick.”

“So you’ll tell him?”

“I… I think I need to wait for the right moment, but, yeah, I’ll tell him.”

Shane tried to smile, but winced at the attempt.

Xander put Shane laundry on the trunk near the tent’s entrance then placed his hand on the bruised side of Shane’s face, and closed his eye. He whispered a minor healing spell, nothing too grandiose; healing spells that tried to heal too much almost never went the way you wanted them too. If they worked at all. The spell was mostly to ease pain and promote natural healing. So instead of Shane’s face healing in two weeks, it’d heal in one.

When Xander opened his eye and lowered his hand from Shane’s face, he saw Shane stared back him with naked disbelief. He raised his hand to his face and his eyes grew even wider.

“You can heal people?”

“I can help people heal faster,” Xander corrected him.

“That’s how my shoulder closed up so quick,” Shane more said than asked.

Xander nodded.

Shane appraised Xander closely before he rubbed his head then lowered himself back down on his cot.

“Tell me what else you can do.”


	6. Cheat Codes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the group takes a much needed rest Carl is injured, which leads to a surprising discovery and a not-so-daring rescue.

The newly formed caravan headed north as planned. The roads were covered in snow and abandoned cars, but they managed to traverse the first twenty miles of their journey with relative ease. All the zombies they encountered had been frozen in place like statues by the cold which allowed Shane, Rick, Glenn, Xander and Dixon to poke all those they came across with no trouble.

Xander still hadn’t told Rick about his magic so he had to put up with Shane’s obnoxiously passive-aggressive attitude the entire trip. All because Glenn decided he wanted to ride with Dale, Andrea, and Amy in the RV to be as far away from Xander as possible. Glenn hoped by avoiding Xander it would stop everyone from thinking they were couple. Xander said all that would do is make it look like they were going through a nasty break up, but Glenn was adamant.

Shane offered Xander shotgun and pretended it was out of the goodness of his heart, but he was really using their close quarters to guilt Xander into keeping his promise to tell Rick his secret. A part of Xander couldn’t really blame Shane either, because it was obvious he’d been dragging his feet ever since he made the promise. Still, it was irritating to have to listen to Shane constantly make supposedly off-handed remarks about how nice and toasty it was inside the SUV and how great it would be if the rest of the caravan could travel as comfortably. Or listen to him go on and on about how much safer it would be if the person leading the caravan at night had good night vision.

Xander could’ve gotten his own car and made the trip alone, but that meant finding gas for it and worrying about its maintenance and upkeep. It would have put more pressure on the groups’ already thin resources so he nixed the idea. Besides, Xander knew it was safer to drive with a partner than alone on such a long journey. Knowing that didn’t make being trapped in a car for days on end with a passive-aggressive Shane any easier though.

Eventually the caravan came upon a stretch of highway blocked off by dozens of abandoned vehicles. They couldn’t go around because the section of two lane highway where the abandoned vehicles sat was paved over a steep hill that went down twenty feet on either side. Backing up and going around would cost them miles, and they didn’t have the fuel to waste. The caravan was already counting on the gas they could siphon from the cars they found on the road to get them all the way to Fort Benning.

“Okay, we set up temporary camp here,” Rick said. “Then we start moving the cars to the median. But first, we need to make sure there aren’t any surprises waiting for us in these cars. Jim, you and Ed go get the salt from the U-haul.”

By the time they were done checking all the cars for zombies, they lost an hour of the already dim daylight. 

Shane, Glenn, Xander, Rick, T-Dog, Andrea, and Dixon got busy breaking into the cars and pushing them into the snow covered median. While Ed and Jim salted the ice to give their shoes more traction when they pushed the cars. It was slow going, especially with all the heavier pick-ups and SUVs they had to move, so they weren’t done before night fell. 

“It’s fine,” said Rick, “we’ll have it all cleared away by noon tomorrow.”

Though Xander would have rather bunked with anyone but Shane, he had to admit he was glad he got to sleep inside the SUV. He could spread out even with Shane taking up half the tailgate. Pushing cars all day had made him bone tired and he appreciated being able to rest comfortably until his shift on watch.

The next day the group finished transferring the cars to the median. Rick ended up being a little off on the time-frame though: they got the job done an hour early.

The caravan pushed forward until they came upon more abandoned cars. That time they were able to go around without any trouble, but not before scavenging what gas and supplies they could. On the fifth day of the caravan’s journey they were once again blocked by a sizable knot of cars in the road. They could have gone around, but Rick had other plans.

Rick decided they would stop for a couple of days so Jim and Ed could check the caravan’s vehicles for wear and tear, and perform any maintenance they might need. Meanwhile, everyone else was assigned to securing the cars on the road and scavenging from them. Once they were done, the group was free to unwind and stretch their legs.

A cheer went through the caravan when Rick told them. They were all sick of being coped up in their cars and trucks for days on end, and grateful for the temporary reprieve. Even Shane didn’t complain about it being a waste of time.

They’d entered a part of Georgia that hadn’t been hit with snow yet, though it was still cold enough to see your breath. They circled the smaller cars in the caravan around the RV and set up a three person watch at all times. Now that there was no snow to freeze the zombies in their tracks, an attack could happen at any time.

Xander wasn’t able to put up a barrier around their impromptu camp because too many people would be coming and going to keep it stable. The best he could do was set up an early warning system of sorts. He expanded the detection barrier to cover three yards in every direction, which he hoped would give the group enough time to set up a defense, or hightail it before they were overrun.

Since he was no good with cars, and there wasn’t much else to do besides sit in Shane’s SUV, Xander did exactly that. Shane had gone off with Rick the help teach Carl to hunt deer, blessing Xander with the peace and quiet he’d been dreaming about since the caravan started. 

Xander pulled out one of the two books he brought with him to the States. A book on charms and fetishes that had no official title. Willow encouraged him to study and memorize the entire book before he tried to create either of his own. Only Xander had read it cover to cover four times while they’d been on the road, and he was no closer to memorizing its two hundred odd pages of extremely dry content. 

Xander was tempted to cheat and make one of the simpler charms, but when he thought about how disappointed Willow would be he redoubled his efforts to do it the right way instead.

He was still reading the book when he heard the gunshot. The shot sounded like it came from a high-powered rifle. Only they ran out of ammo for their rifles weeks ago.

Xander stuffed the book back into his pack and got out of the SUV.

“You hear that?” T-Dog asked him.

“Yeah. Where’d it come from?”

T-Dog pointed towards a group of trees to the north. “The echo made it hard to tell how far away it was, though.”

As the rest of the caravan gathered together the worry and tension in the air grew, but no one was more anxious than Lori.

“Lori, the men went hunting, remember?” Andrea said. “They probably found a deer, that’s all.”

“Then it’s okay if I go find them, then,” Lori said as she strapped on her pack and grabbed one of Rick’s spare pistols.

“Me and Daryl will go,” Glenn said. “We’ll find them and bring ‘em back.”

Xander didn’t want any one to leave. That gunshot was loud enough to attract zombies from miles around. He checked the detection barrier and tried to locate Rick and the others, but they had gone outside its range. Xander knew he could find them quicker than Glenn and Dixon, but he didn’t want to go beyond the circumference of the detection barrier and leave everyone even more vulnerable.

“Bring them back,” Lori told them. 

Glenn and Dixon nodded, then set off in the direction they thought the gunshot came from.

Xander watched them vanish into a heavily wooded area and prayed they all made it back safely.

“Hey! Hey! Over there!” T-Dog shouted out from on top of the RV. 

He was staring through binoculars and pointing towards a different part of the woods than where Glenna and Dixon went. The members of the caravan looked where he aimed his finger and saw someone riding towards them on horseback. Galloping several feet behind the rider was another saddled horse that had no rider. 

“Who the hell is that?” Amy asked.

As the rider rode in closer they could tell it was a young woman with dark hair.

“Who here is Lori?” the woman asked when she reached the group.

Lori stepped forward. “I am.”

“Come with me. Carl’s been shot, he’s being treated on our farm and your husband asked me to take you there.”

Shocked murmurs went through the caravan.

The woman held out her hand and Lori didn’t hesitate to grab hold and let the woman pull her onto the horse.

“Wait, you can’t just go off with a stranger!” Andrea exclaimed.

“Take me to them!” Lori said.

“I will,” the woman said. “Where’s Xander?”

“Right here,” Xander answered and stepped forward.

“Can you ride a horse?”

Xander looked at the mare tethered to the woman’s horse. “Yeah.”

“Get on and follow me.”

“This is crazy!” Andrea said.

“The rest of you can come to our farm,” the woman said. “It’s just a few miles down the road. You’ll see a mail box labeled Greene and a dirt road on your left. Follow it.”

When Xander got on the second horse the woman handed him the reins and then spurred her horse forward. Xander followed close behind.

When they reached the woman’s farm Shane was standing on the porch of a large three storied house. He looked frantic in a way Xander had never seen before. Even after he was bit Shane didn't look anywhere near as panic-stricken.

Lori climbed down from the horse and ran into the house shouting Carl’s name. The woman followed after her. Xander dismounted from the mare and went up to Shane.

“What happened?”

“Carl was gut shot. He might not make it.”

Xander’s stomach tighten sympathetically as he imagined the pain Carl must have gone through when the bullet hit him. “Take me to him,” he said.

Shane led him to a bedroom on the second floor. Inside, Lori was crying beside Carl who lie unconscious on a bed. He was bare-chested, and he wasn’t wearing Rick’s police hat.

Without Rick’s CDH, Carl looked so small. Like a child. Sometimes Xander forgot because the kid was handling the apocalypse better than adults three times his age.

An elderly man stood over Carl and tended to a bloody wound in his abdomen. A woman with long blonde hair aided him by squirting a bottle of some colorless fluid into Carl’s wound to clear away the blood that seeped out. 

Rick sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, presumably so he wouldn’t be in the elderly man’s way. An IV line ran from his arm into Carl’s. Judging from his ashen pallor, Rick had been transfusing his blood into Carl for quite some time.

Another man was also in the room. He was older and portly, and Xander noticed Shane glared angrily whenever he looked at the rotund man.

“Shane, why’d you want him here?” Rick asked in a scratchy, tired voice.

“He can help. Just trust me. Can you do anything?” Shane asked Xander.

“I need to touch him.”

“What!” Both Rick and Lori exclaimed at once.

“Shane, get him out of here!” Rick shouted.

“Just let him do it.”

“All I need is to hold his hand.”

“Shane, what is going on?” Lori asked.

“If you ever believed I cared about you and Carl, listen to me and let Xander hold his hand,” Shane told her.

“Whatever you want to do, do it, then get out. All this noise isn’t helping the situation!” the elderly man treating Carl’s wound grumbled.

Lori began to sob and Rick looked like he was on the verge of breaking down too. Xander went over to Carl and gently took his hand. The boy’s hand was cold, and there was no tension in his fingers. For a moment Xander thought he was dead. Then Carl’s skinny torso rose as he took a worryingly shallow breath.

Xander closed his eye and cast the healing spell, and also poured his own life force into Carl. He felt the energy flow into the boy and connect with something buried inside Carl’s spirit that made Xander stiffen with surprise.

 _Good_ , Xander thought after the shock passed, then he pushed even more magic into the spark he’d discovered.

He let go of Carl’s hand and opened his eye. Everyone in the room was staring at him like he was crazy. Only Shane had a look of hopeful expectation on his face.

“Will he be alright?” Shane asked.

“For a little while, but he needs real medical treatment. And soon.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” the elderly man groused.

“There’s an abandoned FEMA outpost nearby. It has the medical supplies we need to save him,” Shane said.

“What’s the catch?”

“It’s overrun.”

“Of course it is. Let’s go,” Xander said.

He followed Shane out of the bedroom and down to the front door. As they were about to leave the man Shane glared at in the bedroom tried to exit the house with them.

“No! No fucking way! You ain’t coming!” Shane said.

“Please! I can help you!”

“Who is this?” Xander asked.

“He’s the dumb son of a bitch who shot Carl!” Shane snarled.

“It was an accident!” the man said.

Xander believed him. The man looked the kind of devastated that was hard to fake. Still, Xander wasn’t inclined to let him come with them either.

“We can handle it,” Xander told him as gently as possible, even though he nearly killed Carl.

“Let me make this right!”

Shane charged at the man, but Xander stepped between them. 

“What’s your name?” Xander asked.

“Otis.”

“Otis, no offense, but you’ll just slow us down. We appreciate you wanting to help, but we got this. Alright?”

Otis looked like he was about to cry, but eventually he bowed his head and nodded. He handed Shane a slip of paper and a large duffel bag, then he went back upstairs.

“Let’s go, part two,” Xander said..

The FEMA outpost was at a local high school The outpost was a trailer that sat in front of the school’s main building, right between the parking lot and drop-off zone. The place was absolutely crawling with zombies.

“Shit,” Shane said.

“Yeah. Turn around and take us half way back to the farm.”

“What for?”

“Just do it. I’ll explain later.”

When Shane stopped Otis’s pick-up a few minutes later, Xander got out and walked over to the nearest tree. Shane was right on his heels, practically jumping out of skin with impatience. Xander pulled out his folding knife and craved a glyph into the tree’s bark. When he was satisfied it was perfect, he put away the knife and turned to Shane who stared at the glyph with obvious confusion.

“Back to the school, Jeeves,” Xander said before he ran back to the pick-up.

Shane looked like he had a million questions, but he jogged back to the truck without asking any of them.

By the time they returned to the school, it was night time. It was so dark the zombies almost looked like normal people if you didn’t notice how they shuffled about aimlessly. The darkness was perfect for what Xander had planned.

“Stay close to me,” Xander said after they got out of the pick-up a dozen or so yards from the school’s grounds. “No matter what happens, stay where we can reach each other fast.”

“Okay.”

Xander closed his eye and murmured into existence a dozen will-o'-the-wisp. He made each one the size of a basketball, then sent them over the horde meandering around the FEMA trailer. When the blazing balls of light caught the attention of the zombies, Xander commanded the wisps to draw them away from the school. He’d put enough power into the wisps to keep them mobile and radiating for at least an hour, long enough to lead the zombies far away. 

“Holy shit,” Shane whispered after the last zombie disappeared from view a few minutes later.

“Bring the truck up to the trailer,” Xander said.

Before they entered the trailer they armed themselves with guns Otis had put in the duffel bag for them, but miraculously no zombies were waiting inside to ambush them. 

“We need everything on this list Otis gave me,” Shane said.

“We’re taking everything on the list and whatever else we can fit in the truck,” Xander replied as he began searching the shelves for the medical equipment Carl needed.

“We don’t have time for that! We can come back for this shit later!”

“We have time. Trust me.”

“You better be sure, man! You better be real fucking sure!”

Once they got everything from the list and placed it in the duffel, Shane and Xander started snatching up bottles and bottles of medication; then first aid kits, maternity kits, burn kits, splints, solar power banks, radios, kinetic flashlights, insulin and epinephrine injection pens, antibiotics, PPE, surgical thread and needles, and boxes of clean syringes. There was also a lot of other equipment they didn’t recognize in the trailer, and they took those as well. By the time they finished, the trailer was nearly cleaned out.

“Drive careful,” Xander told Shane. “We didn’t tie any of that stuff down.”

Shane started the pick-up and they drove away from the school.

When they got back to the farm, they drove past the rest of the caravan parked on the grounds around the road leading up to the farmhouse. Shane and Xander hurried the equipment Carl needed up to bedroom and gave it to the elderly doctor, blonde woman, and Otis. While everything was being set up, Rick grabbed Shane and hugged him so hard that he lifted the man a foot off the floor. Lori cried and mouthed the words ‘thank you’ over and over while she clung to Carl’s hand.

Xander left the room and went to tell the rest of the caravan Carl was about to have surgery.

When the elderly man, Hershel, announced Carl was stable Xander finally went to sleep. He was drained. Not just magically, but emotionally. He was so tired he let himself believe the farm was safe just so he could curl up in the SUV and not worry about zombies eating his brain while he slept. 

When he woke up at sunrise, Shane was in the SUV sitting behind the steering wheel and drinking a beer.

“Carl?”

“He’s good, or so the old man says.”

“Good. God, what time is it?”

“How’d you know he’d survive?”

Xander groaned and flopped back down on his bedding.

“You said you told me everything about your magic. But you didn’t, did you?”

“You want to know how I knew Carl would survive? I’ll tell you. He has the potential to use magic. A lot of it,” Xander said.

Shane turned around and leaned over the seat to look at Xander.

“Fuck me. Carl’s a witch?”

“With training. I felt it in him when I used my life force to stabilize his wounds. I sort of jump-started his innate talent so his body could use it to survive.”

“Fuck me.”

“No thanks. What time is it?”

“What about the thing with the tree?”

“Are you just adverse to telling me what time it is?”

“Where’s your watch?”

“Thing stopped working weeks ago.”

“About the tree…”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“So you didn’t tell me everything.”

“No, I didn’t tell you everything,” Xander said. “I never promised I would.”

“True. Well, the cat’s out of the bag now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Rick and Lori might have kept thinking you were crazy if Hershel didn’t say Carl’s recovery was happenin’ faster than it should be.”

“Oh, man.”

“A-yup. And everybody’s real curious how we got our hands on all that medical shit, too.”

Xander eyed Shane then asked, “What did you tell them?”

“I didn’t tell them anything. I thought the truth might be better comin’ from you.”

“Yeah, right.” Xander closed his eye. “Did Glenn and Dixon make it back?”

“T-Dog brought them in last night while your were gettin’ your beauty sleep.”

“Damn. Okay.”

Xander grabbed his coat and got out of the SUV. He found Glenn helping Jim rotate the tires on the Morales’ minivan. When Glenn saw Xander he excused himself to Jim and walked over.

“So are you a faith healer, or something?” he asked.

“No. I’m a wizard, Harry,” Xander said.

“Really?”

Xander tilted his head and indicated he wanted Glenn to follow him. When he saw Glenn cast a nervous glance at the brown haired woman who brought Lori and Xander to the farm, Xander shook his head.

“Oh, my god, dude! Just come here before I announce you’re man in front of your new crush!”

“Okay, okay! Jesus!”

Xander led Glenn back to the SUV and took one the rings from his pack as Shane looked on with interest.

“You think giving me a ring is going to make people less convinced we’re dating?” Glenn said.

“Shut up.” Xander took out his pocket knife and nicked Glenn’s forearm.

Glenn jerked back and covered the cut with his hand. 

“Hey! What the fuck!”

“Say you give me permission to use your blood.”

“What for?”

“Just do it, okay?”

“I give you permission to use my blood. Happy?”

“Ecstatic.”

Xander completed the blessing and told Glenn to put on the ring. By then Glenn could tell Xander was serious about whatever it was he was doing, so he did what Xander asked without any of their usual wise-ass back and forth.

“Whoa!” Glenn wobbled for a moment before he regained his balance. “What was that?”

Xander finally smiled and said:

“That was magic.”


	7. Terms of Service

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander has a plan, but he needs to trust Shane first. So, he decides to use a short cut...

Xander didn’t need to deal with Rick right away. 

Carl was still unconscious and recovering in the Greene house. Rick and Lori rarely left his bedside, and didn’t seem to be in any hurry leave it. That gave Xander time to consider how he wanted to revel his magic to Rick. 

When he finally did tell Rick, Xander hoped saving Carl’s life would make Rick grateful instead of afraid—but he wasn’t banking on that being the case.

As for the rest of the camp, they were curious about the part Xander played in Carl’s survival, but none of them had actually seen him do anything miraculous. So The Greenes’ story of Xander healing Carl by holding his hand was all rumor and fanciful nonsense to them. 

Xander still got looked at oddly, especially by the Greene family, but Xander didn’t concern himself with having to answer to them. Unlike most everyone else in the camp, Xander wasn’t hoping to stay on the farm, and felt no real need to make nice with them for the privilege. 

Since Rick was preoccupied Shane resumed a leadership position over the group. He was even able to negotiate with Hershel to allow the group more freedom on the farm. Most importantly, Shane got them camp land near two freshwater wells, and access to the nearby creek. It cost them three first aid kits, an anesthesia machine, an electrosurgical unit, five boxes of Doritos and half a dozen cases of soda. 

Shane also tried to gain them access to the barn, but Hershel wouldn’t budge on that no matter what Shane offered.

“Too bad,” Shane said. “That barn would be good shelter. You could have set up a pretty good ward around it.”

Xander had been in the middle of reading through a portable defibrillator manual when Shane brought the farm up. The two were sitting the SUV, Shane knocking back beers and Xander reading. Xander looked up from the manual and then at Shane with a confused frown. As far as Xander was concerned the farm was a layover—a pit stop on the way to Fort Benning. The way Shane talked made it sound like he wanted to set up a permanent camp on the farm.

“Don’t tell me you want to stay here after Carl gets better?” Xander asked.

“Why not? The farm has fresh water, plenty of space, and Andrea and Amy say there’s a shit load of bass in that creek. If we’re careful we could have fresh fish on the regular all year round.” Shane hiked his chin toward the windshield. “The trees block the farm from being seen from the highway, and with all the cleared farm land we can see the lame brains coming before they get too close.”

Shane looked at Xander and said, “If we can get Hershel to let us stay here we might not need to go to Fort Benning.”

“Would you let a bunch of strangers stay on your little slice of paradise if you were in his place?”

Shane rubbed the top of his head before he replied, “Not for free.”

Xander narrowed his eye at Shane. “Obviously. So what do you think we have to offer that would make Hershel change his mind?”

“I think you know.”

Xander shook his head.

“I told you, I’m don’t plan to stay in the states any longer than I have to.”

“I remember.”

“And the most useful spells I know don't last forever, so they wouldn't be worth it to Hershel to let everyone stay.”

“That’s not true, now is it?”

Xander turned away.

“What man—what father—wouldn’t give anything to make sure his kids won’t turn into one of them geeks?”

“What if he asks for all the rings, what then?”

“He doesn’t know how many you have.”

“So lie.”

“Having information your opponents don’t is as much a part of negotiation as anything else.”

“You’re a real piece of work.”

Shane snorted. “I figured you for a snotty, little smart-ass, Harris, but I never would have guessed you were squeamish.

“I’m not being squeamish,” Xander said. “I’m just saying staying here is a bad idea. We should go to the Fort.”

“You ever hear ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’?”

“Spare me the backwoods proverbs, okay?”

“We can send a small group out to Fort Benning to see if it’s safe while the rest secure the farm as much as possible. If the Fort doesn’t turn out to be what we need we still have the farm to fall back on until we figure out our next move.”

“You’re being naive if you think this place can be made safe.”

“You’re still thinking like someone who’ll be keeping his magic secret.”

When Xander didn’t reply Shane said, “You could put up a barrier around the farm. Not all of it,” Shane said when he saw Xander about to interrupt, “just one big enough to keep walkers away from the camp and main buildings. With everybody knowing what you can do it’ll be easier to maintain the barrier and have more reliable security.”

“I told you: I am going home. How long do you think you can keep the farm secure after I’m gone?”

“I never planned to depend on you forever. With time we can put up walls and dig trenches around the farm for better defense.”

“But why waste the time and effort? Fort Benning could offer all that and more!”

“And you’re calling me naive? All this time we been acting like we’ll be welcomed there. If they’re still operational who’s to say they have enough room and supplies to take us in? Who’s to say there’s any law there at all? We know what we got here, and I say we make this our home so we don’t have to cross our fingers and crawl on our knees begging for help that might not be forthcoming.”

“There’s gotta be better options than this farm. There has to be.”

Shane held up a placating hand and said, “You’re probably right. So why not find them? We can scout the surrounding area and look for someplace better. And while we’re doing that, we can bring back what we need to make ourselves more self-sufficient. Like we did with the high school. Hell, we could turn the school into another fall back territory after all the work you, me, and Glenn done there.”

Xander couldn’t deny Shane had made bulletproof points about the school. 

Clearing it out had been simple. Xander just had to ward off parts of the hallways, and the doorways, and then let the zombies come to them and get their rotted skulls poked. It’d taken less than two days to clear the entire place. At that point they were able to leisurely bring back hundreds of pounds of food and other supplies. They had to leave a lot of perishables behind because most of it spoiled after the freezers lost power, but the canned food they found alone was enough to keep them well-fed for at least a year.

Shane was right about the school being a good fall back position. Especially if they could figure out how to get the school’s generator up and running. The school wouldn’t repel a handful of determined marauders— way too many windows—but it’d easily keep out a horde of zombies. 

Xander fell silent, seriously thinking over Shane’s words. Nothing Shane said sounded wrong, he was right about almost everything, but Xander still felt like Shane had an angle he couldn’t see. 

Xander just couldn’t shake the feeling he was being played somehow.

“Okay,” Xander said, “let’s make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“If you get Hershel to let the group stay I’ll go along with your plan.” Xander took a deep breath and went on to say, “I’ll even give up a ring, no complaints.”

One of Xander’s goals was to give the rest of the rings to the children in the group before he left. But Shane getting a ring, and now the possibly of losing another one to Hershel meant one of the kids wouldn’t be getting one. Putting the rings on their fingers would have been tricky, and required questionable acts of immorality on Xander’s part, but he was still disappointed he no longer had the option to protect them all from the infection.

“In exchange for what?”

“Trust.”

“Trust?”

“That’s right,” Xander said. “I’ll put up wards and barriers where you want, when you want. I’ll be a good little follower. But, when I’m ready, I want to go to Fort Benning—and I want you to guarantee my safety when I do.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that? I can’t promise any of us will see tomorrow.”

“I explain how after you agree to my terms.”

“If I don’t agree, then what?”

Xander shrugged. “I can leave whenever I want. I can walk away right now and not feel any guilt because I know the group will be relatively safe until Carl heals in a few months. Glenn has a ring and is already a pretty damn good survivor, so I won’t have to worry too much about him. I’ve done enough for you people. I can walk away with a clear conscious. And I will, because I told you before: I will go home no matter what.”

Xander and Shane eyed one another for a long time. Neither one speaking as the early morning sun slowly traveled across the partly cloudy sky and Shane sipped at his beer.

“What do I need to do?” Shane asked finally.

Xander searched Shane’s eyes for any doubt or deception. When he was satisfied Shane was being as honest as someone like him could be, Xander told him to get in the back of the SUV. Once there, Xander rummaged through his bag until he found the ball of blue yarn he took from the school's Home Economics classroom.

“What’s that for?” Shane asked.

“A spell,” Xander replied as he unraveled the yarn.

After he’d unwound half the yarn, Xander looked at Shane and said, “Hold your right hand up, palm out to me.”

Shane did so without a moment’s hesitation which surprised Xander enough to make the shard of ice he had in his heart melt a bit. But he quickly reminded himself that Shane was willing to do whatever it took to get what he wanted—to survive. That’s all Shane’s openness was. Not trust or faith, just the hardness to make any sacrifice no matter what it might be at a moment’s notice.

_Well_ , Xander thought to himself, _let’s find out just how much he’s really willing to give up to survive_.

“I’m going to use this yarn to bind our hands together,” Xander said as he pressed his left hand against Shane’s right.

“Is this some kind of… love spell?” Shane asked.

Xander had already wound some of the yarn over the bottom knuckles of his and Shane’s thumb and forefingers. He paused at Shane’s question and looked the man straight in the eye when he said: 

“No. It’s really not.”

Shane scowled then watched Xander finish tying their hands together in silence.

Shane’s back was already near the front seat of the SUV so Xander pushed him all the way against it before he crawled onto Shane's lap.

“What the fuck?”

Xander understood Shane’s dismay. The required level of physical contact they needed was uncomfortable, but necessary. At least Shane didn’t have a demon who wanted him dead sitting on his lap like Xander did the first time the bonding spell was cast on him.

“Shhh,” Xander hissed when he pressed their foreheads together and closed his eye. “When I finish the bonding words I want you to lock your fingers together with mine, starting with your thumb, and say my name until we run out of fingers.”

Shane didn’t reply, and for a few moments the only sound in the SUV was the sound of Shane’s unsteady breathing.

“Do you understand?” Xander asked. He was barely able to keep irritation out his voice.

“Y-Yeah.”

Xander took a deep breath and spoke the brief spell that began the bonding ritual. Its Gaelic dialect was difficult for Xander to pronounce because he hadn’t spoken it since he finished his tutelage under Aluwyn. He should have kept it up, but he never got along with Aluwyn. She’d only taught him to placate Willow, and then used the opportunity to nearly have him killed. A part of Xander couldn’t help but feel rebellious when it came to taking Aluwyn’s teachings to heart. 

The spell was short, thankfully, so there weren’t too many words he needed to avoid tripping over before he was through.

“Now,” Xander whispered.

Then Xander and Shane simultaneously spoke each other’s name and locked their fingers together one by one. Xander could feel the yarn begin to move as it wove itself into intricate patterns over their fingers, hands, and arms. 

“How’s it doing that?” Shane asked.

Xander didn’t dare look at the shapes the yarn formed. Shane could look all he wanted, but if Xander so much as glanced at a single pattern not only would the spell fail, but the yarn would slice through his fingers like a garrote.

Xander ignored the question and took Shane’s other hand in his. The next part would be easy. All Xander had to do was circulate his magic through Shane body before reabsorbing it and pushing it into the yarn. 

Once that was completed the bonding spell finally merged their souls together.

The yarn slithered off their hands and spooled itself into a ball before it dropped to the floor of the cab beside them. Xander slid off Shane’s lap as Shane stared at his hand, curling and uncurling it with a look of pure amazement on his face.

“It was like the string was alive. What was that?”

“A bonding spell.”

“Bonding spell?”

Xander didn’t feel like answering Shane’s questions, he felt like he wanted to curl up and sleep.

It was strange—Xander shouldn’t have felt any more tired than he was before the spell, since bonding rituals practically cast themselves after all parties agree to submit.

Xander fought off his tiredness and forced himself to remain upright in front of Shane.

“Put simply: anything that happens to me happens to you.”

Shane scowled and said, “That don’t sound simple at all.”

Xander’s shoulders bounced when he let out a humph. 

“Fair enough. Okay, it’s like this: I plan to go to Fort Benning by astral projecting there.”

“Astral what?”

“My spirit will leave my body and travel to the fort.”

“Like a ghost or something?”

“Sure. Like a ghost, except I won’t be dead. I just won’t be in my body.”

“And the bonding part? How does that fit?”

“The bonding makes you my anchor, and not just that, but whatever happens to my body while I’m projecting happens to you.”

“Explain.”

“Sure. If I die of thirst, you die of thirst. If I starve to death, you starve to death. If a zombie eats my brain... et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” Xander said a bit too glibly.

“The fuck, man?”

“I told you: if you want my help then I need to trust you.”

“That shit don’t sound like trust.”

“How else am I supposed to leave myself that vulnerable? We both know you wouldn’t hesitate to throw my body into a horde if it bought you two more seconds to escape.”

Shane glanced at his hands. He focused briefly on the purification ring before he looked at Xander.

“Fine. I get it. So you want me to watch over your body while you go floating off somewhere.”

“That’s right. I-It could take two or three days because I’ll probably have to run most of the way there and back. Even in a-astral form I don’t have the juice to fly very long.”

“And when you get there?”

“I’ll find out if it’s safe and if they’re c-capable of taking us in.”

“What if it’s not and they can’t?”

“Then I’ll… I’ll do what I can to make the farm a home.”

“However long it takes?”

“Not f-forever,” Xander said, “but long enough to m-make it self-sufficient like you plan.”

“Good enough.”

Shane held out his hand. Xander stared at Shane’s hand for a moment before he took it and they shook on it.

“You can pass out now,” Shane said after their hands pulled apart.

“What?”

“You’re slurring your words, and it looks like you can barely keep your eye open.” Shane smirked then said, “Don’t worry, consider this a test run for when I have to watch over your carcass for real.”

Xander wanted to tell Shane he was wrong, but he really couldn’t keep his eye open anymore. He slumped over until his shoulder hit the tailgate floor. The last thing Xander remembered before he passed out was Shane pulling him onto his bedding and covering him with a blanket.


	8. Assist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander goes fishing down a well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter, it’s not even five full pages. I wanted to make each chapter focus on a specific scene as often as possible, because I’ve been told that's what most readers prefer. The next chapter has almost three times as many pages, so hopefully that will make up for the shortness of this one.

“How you feelin’?”

Xander woke up to Shane standing by the open tailboard looking in at him. The sun was still out which meant Xander hadn’t slept too long. His limbs were sprawled in the tailgate like someone who’d been violently tossing and turning. If Shane had been in tailgate with Xander, he definitely would have been punched and kicked a few times.

“Good. I guess. I don’t know why the bonding spell hit me like that. It shouldn’t have. What’s going on?”

“We have a problem with one of the wells.”

Xander followed Shane to one of five wells on the Greene farm. Unlike the other well Hershel let them use, the one Shane brought him to was being used as a reservoir because its pump was broken. T-Dog and Dale were supposed be trying to fix the pump last Xander heard. 

As Xander and Shane approached, T-Dog, Dale, Maggie Greene, Amy and Andrea stood around the mouth of the well as they discussed the problem Xander hadn’t seen yet.

“Well… that’s gross,” Xander said when he saw the bloated zombie floating at the bottom of the well.

“Extremely,” Andrea agreed.

“So I guess the question is: how do we get it out of there without contaminating the well water?”

“If it ain’t already,” Shane said.

“I say we get a rope around it and pull the damn thing out,” Dale suggested.

“It’ll be hard to get anything around that manatee looking son of a bitch,” said T-Dog.

“We won’t be needing a rope,” Shane said. “Will we, Xander?”

Xander looked away from the floater to see Shane tilt his head down at the well and cock his brow.

Xander glanced at each person surrounding the well before he sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair. “No. We won’t,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Andrea asked after she caught their exchange.

“Xander is going to take care of the swimmer down there.”

“He going to crawl down and pull the thing out with his bare hands?” T-Dog said.

“No. I’m not doing that,” Xander said as he calculated how much magic he needed to get the zombie out of the well. 

He was sure he could lift the thing out under normal circumstances, but the zombie was saturated with so much fluid it probably weighed twice as much as it would if it was dry. And the zombie was bloated to the point that if Xander got sloppy with his telekinetic grip, the thing would pop like a balloon and contaminate the well water beyond even his ability to clean it up.

“Okay, first we’re going to need to cover the well the second I get it out of there, just in case. A tarp or something.” Xander looked over at Maggie. “Do you have five or six rocks, smooth, about ye big laying around I can use?”

Maggie gave Xander a bemused look before she shrugged and said, “Out by the creek, most likely.”

“Bring me some. And bring water from another well, too. Keep them separated.”

Maggie looked over at Shane. When he gave a her a reassuring nod she shrugged again, then her, Amy, and Andrea left to get the rocks and well water Xander requested.

“I think we have a few tarps in the U-haul,” T-Dog said and he hurried away to get them. 

Then it was just Shane, Xander, and Dale.

Xander knelt beside the opening of the well, still trying to work out the logistics of his plan when Dale asked, “You really think you can get it out of there safely?”

“Maybe,” Xander said. “I have a seventy-thirty chance of pulling it off, I think.”

“With your magic?”

Xander shot to his feet.

“W-What?”

“C’mon, you two weren’t exactly church mice during your watch,” Dale said. “I may be old, but I’m not deaf.”

Embarrassed, Xander felt heat rise in his face. He had thought Dale was too old the hear them. Or at least too old to be awake to hear them.

“Well, uh, that’s—”

“How come you never said anything?” Shane asked.

“I thought about it, believe me,” Dale said. “You two sounded off your rockers, but far as I could tell it was just talk, so I decided I’d only say anything if I saw either of you do anything to put the camp at risk.”

Xander knew he shouldn't be reacting to Dale knowing his secret with such panic; he was about to reveal what he could do in front of other members of the group, after all. His nervousness came from not knowing what the reactions of the group were going to be, and that uncertainty is what truly frightened him. By the time Maggie, Andrea, and Amy returned with the rocks and a bucket of well water, Xander’s powerful instinct to escape hadn’t lessened very much.

Xander shook off his anxiety and began casting a cleansing spell on the rocks. The others watched as he silently enchanted each fist-sized rock before placing them in the bucket of water one by one. When Xander was done he asked Shane to take the bucket away from the well. A few minutes later T-Dog returned with two heavy blue tarps and several rocks the size of his head on a panel cart they scavenged from the school. 

“I figured we could use these rocks to pin the tarps down,” T-Dog said.

The rest of the group nodded in approval, and then all eyes were on Xander again.

Xander took a deep, calming breath then said, “Okay. Everyone stand back. Be ready with the tarps.”

After the others stepped away from the mouth of the well, Xander stood near its edge and focused his full attention on the zombie.

Telekinesis was beginner magic. Learning how to float a pencil with it was the first magic Willow taught him. Yet, it had been a barrier to using magic that Xander had been unable move past for a long time. The concentration, the clarity to focus his mind on a single object, to understand it so completely he could count how many atoms it had seemed impossible to him. 

How was he supposed to understand the nature of something so well when he had a hard time understanding basic Algebra, or why Keeping Up with the Kardashians was popular? He was supposed to look at a pencil and get how it interacted with root systems, molecules, and the energy that moved the very universe? Yeah, right. 

He barely passed high school.

Xander must have given up a hundred times those first few months. He was on the verge of giving up a hundred and one times when he finally made the pencil twitch on the table in front of him. It hadn’t been the wind, or his foot bumping a table leg, but magic. Magic he used and controlled to make a thing outside himself move with just his will and his mind.

Xander sent that same power down into the well and formed an invisible bubble around zombie. Encapsulating it, several broken pieces of wood, and nearly ten gallons of well water. When he felt the bubble stabilize he raised his arms out to his sides. Inch by careful inch, he lifted his hands up as he imagined he held the bubble in them. 

“The hell is he doin’?” T-Dog said.

T-Dog, Andrea, and Amy stepped closer and peeked over the edge of the well. Then as one they all cursed and leapt back when they saw the zombie floating up towards them.

“The fuck!” T-Dog exclaimed.

“Fuck! Fuck!” Andrea shouted.

“Shit! It’s coming up! Shit!” Amy said.

Xander ignored them and lifted his hands higher. Higher. Soon, the zombie’s head rose over the mouth of the well. The others, except Shane, retreated as more and more of the zombie came into view. Its nude, bloated form hovered over the opening of the well as its arms stretched out at Xander, who was closest to it, but it could only scratch uselessly at the bubble.

When the zombie finally cleared the well Xander hands were almost level with the top of his head.

“Cover the well,” Xander said.

Shane quickly moved to spread the tarps over the well. 

At first it didn’t look like T-Dog would help, but then he let out an emphatic, “Fuck!” and helped Shane roll out the tarps. He muttered a constant string of curses and didn’t take his eyes off the zombie for more than a few seconds at a time.

Xander walked away from the well. He could feel his power weakening every second, but he was sure he could levitate the zombie a good distance away before he ran out of magic. As Xander hoped, when Shane and T-Dog finished covering the well, Shane came over and paced behind him with his chisel at the ready.

“Say when,” Shane said.

Xander took a deep breath and gently as he could put the bubble on the ground.

“When.”

The zombie lost it’s footing and ended up floundering around on its stomach the moment Xander made the bubble disappear and let it hit the ground. Xander was glad the thing didn’t immediately burst open on impact. He hadn’t smelled entrails in a while, and he wanted keep the trend going. 

A second later, Shane stepped forward and poked the back of the zombie’s head.

Not unexpectedly, Xander felt dizzy. He lost track of his surroundings as his vision faded. When he could see and think clearly again, he noticed Shane had grabbed one of his arms and was holding him steady. 

The zombie had been the most weight Xander ever moved with magic, and the mental and physical stress of doing it was going to knock him on his ass if he didn’t meditate and restore his power before then. 

“What the holy fuck was that!” T-Dog said.

Xander saw the same burning question in the others' eyes. Even Dale, who had foreknowledge of what Xander was capable of, appeared shocked. 

Xander looked back at Shane and indicated he was fine. Shane didn’t look convinced, but he stepped away and let Xander stand under his own power.

“That… That was magic,” Xander said and realized he had trouble breathing. 

Xander could tell from the looks on their faces the group wanted to deny his claim, but watching a bloated zombie hover in the air by itself was a hard thing to refute after you’ve seen it with your own eyes. Now, if they’d been back in Sunnydale, all bets would have been off. Xander probably could have used the old, ‘It was a mass hallucination!’ excuse and gotten away with it.

“Bring me the rocks,” Xander said.

Maggie gingerly handed Xander the bucket of rocks and well water. He had to commend her, because judging from how badly her hands trembled when she gave him the bucket, she didn’t want to be anywhere near him. T-Dog and Shane pulled the tarps away and then Xander lifted each rock to his lips and whispered the words, “Like into like,” before he began tossing them into the well water below.

“W-What are you doing?” Maggie asked.

“If the walker contaminated the well this will clean it up.” Xander suppressed a sigh when saw the doubt in her eyes. “We have a water testing kit if you want to confirm the water’s clean when I’m done.”

Maggie nodded then watched silently with the others as Xander tossed the rest of the stones into the well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to put a warning here concerning the next chapter (I will be putting another warning in there, too). The next part will contain sexual assault. It won’t be graphic, but it will be somewhat intense.


	9. Creeps/CS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander finally tells Rick about his magic, and another scavenging trip turns deadly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is the sexual assault of a minor in this chapter.

Xander was digging a hole when Shane came over to talk to him.

Xander frowned as he eyed Shane’s clean clothes and sweat-less brow. Though everyone else seemed fine with Shane acting like an overseer, Xander was less than thrilled. Shane standing around doing nothing while everyone else worked reminded Xander of every lazy, jerk-face manager he ever worked for after high school.

Xander and others in the camp were digging holes for posts that would become new, and hopefully, stronger fencing for the animals on Greene farm. Shane had convinced Hershel to let the camp build a better fence after a few gruesome stories about all the mutilated cows and horses the caravan saw on the road to Fort Benning. Shane didn’t say, but Xander was sure putting up the new fence was part of his plan to get Hershel to let them stay longer.

“Xander,” Shane greeted in a tone that made Xander think if he’d been wearing a hat, he would have tipped it.

“What’s going on?” Xander asked.

“I think now’s a good time to have that talk with Rick.”

Xander used a hand towel from his pants pocket to wipe sweat off his face before he looked over at the farmhouse.

“You think?”

Word about Xander and the swimmer got out fast. Those who didn’t see it happen with their own eyes were doubtful, and Rick was one of them. Shane wanted Xander to show Rick his magic was real, and now that people knew about it, Xander wanted to tell Rick and finally get it over with. Except, Rick so rarely left Carl’s side the opportunity never arose.

“Carl’s started his rehabilitation with Hershel and Patricia today,” Shane said. “Rick ain’t much help with that, so all he can do is stand back and watch.”

“Okay. Where is he?”

“The front porch drinking Tang and choking down boiled cauliflower and broccoli so he can keep giving Carl transfusions if he needs to.”

Recently Carl had been suffering from anemia and having chest pains, so Hershel had Rick regularly transfusing blood to alleviate Carl’s symptoms.

Xander put his shovel and work gloves in the utility wagon where unused tools were being stored. He wiped his forehead again before he made his way over to the farmhouse.  
“Want me to come along?” Shane asked falling in beside him.

“How about you pick up a shovel and get your soft, little hands dirty, boss-man,” Xander snarked.

“Hey, someone’s gotta be free to coordinate everything,” Shane said, patting the radio on his hip.

Dixon had a matching radio, and so did Morales who were patrolling the borders of the farm with his wife and Otis. Glenn also had one while he, Maggie, and Jimmy scavenged in town.

“Yeah, sure… right.”

“So, do you want me to go for moral support?”

Xander thought about it for a moment before he accepted Shane’s offer. He didn’t think Rick was going to take the news badly, but there was always a chance he could be wrong. Everyone, except Dale, who was at the well when Xander pulled out of the zombie were avoiding him. No one was hostile, but the friendliness there before now seemed muted at best and forced at worse. So, if Xander was wrong about Rick, then, as weird as it sounded, Shane being there might help keep the situation calm.

Xander still worried about whose side Shane would take if Rick seriously turned against him, but he had a spell ready in case everything went BOHICA.

Rick was sitting on the porch dutifully scarfing down vegetables from a salad bowl when they found him. On a table stand beside him was a tall glass and a huge pitcher, both filled with ice and an orange liquid. Rick looked like he was being tortured every time he swallowed a bite of cauliflower.

Rick grown out quite a beard. His hair was longer too, and there was a touch more gray streaked through it. Still, despite his unkempt appearance, Rick looked much better than when Carl was fighting for his life after being shot.

“Rick, we need to talk,” Xander said.

Rick happily put the bowl of roughage on the stand and stood up. “What going on?”

“You heard about the well?” Xander asked, already knowing he had.

Rick was quiet for a moment before he said, “I heard. I don’t believe it, but I heard.”

“It’s real. I used magic to raise that walker.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true,” Shane said.

Rick shook his head. “I don’t know what happened at that well, but there is no such thing as magic.”

“Then how did I do it, then?”

Rick shrugged. “Don’t know. I just know everyone who said they saw what you did must have been hallucinating, or you’re an illusionist.”  
Xander closed his eye for and sighed. He’d heard sillier explanations from people trying to deny supernatural things happened, but he was still disappointed Rick was being pig-headed enough to accuse him of being David Blaine.

Xander opened is eye and said, “Fine. Follow me.”

Xander turned around and walked over to the stables. He didn’t look to see if Rick or Shane were behind him. He chose to put on a small demonstration by the stables because all the horses had been taken out so he wouldn’t have to worry about spooking them. He came to stop in front of the watering trough then turned to face Rick and Shane.  
“Stand over there,” Xander told Rick, pointing at the end of the trough.

Rick hesitated for a few seconds before he did as Xander asked.

Xander had known Rick wouldn’t instantly accept magic being real, so he’d given a lot of thought to how to prove it did. After concluding Rick would be able to dismiss seeing subtle magics, Xander decided he needed to show Rick one of his flashiest spells. Something so in your face not even someone suffering from hardcore Sunnydale denial would be able to reject what they saw.

Xander placed his forearms one over the other. His left hand, palm out, was under the elbow of his right arm, and his right hand, also palm out, was in front of his left shoulder. He focused his thoughts and pictured in his mind how he wanted to mold the magic he was about to summon. When he was sure he had balanced all the proper elements together he moved his arms until his hands came together, and then he spoke the words:

“Ignis incende.”

Before his hands moved apart, a ball of fire formed between them. As the fireball grew Xander mentally raised it over his head. Xander wanted Rick to feel its heat and made the fireball reach the size of a beach ball.

“My, God,” Rick said as he backed away from the orb blazing over Xander head like a miniature sun.

Convinced Rick had seen enough, Xander shrunk the fireball until it was no larger than a baseball before he sent it into the water trough. Xander could have cut off the spell and made the fire disappear, but he wanted the fireball to make the water in the trough boil and steam so there was no denying it had been a tangible thing.

“How?” Rick whispered.

“I’m a witch.”

Rick stared at Xander with wide eyes when he shook his head and said, “I don’t think I know what that means.”

“It means I can cast spells like the one you just saw. It means,” Xander looked over at Shane, “I can help the group survive.”

Rick just stared at Xander, his eyes full of doubt and fear. Then he inhaled sharply, and both faded from his eyes, and were replaced with the glassiness of unshed tears. Rick and walked over and put his hands on Xander’s shoulders.

“You did use magic to save Carl.” Rick looked very emotional when he said that, and it made Xander nervous.

“Not exactly. I helped stabilize him long enough to get the equipment Hershel needed to save him.”

Rick searched Xander face for a moment before his hands tighten over Xander’s shoulders and he said, “All I’m hearing is you bought my boy more time. You helped get the equipment, too. To me that means you saved his life. Thank you!”

Rick’s voice had gone husky by time he finished speaking. It seemed like he was about to hug Xander. Not wanting to be put into such an awkward position Xander shot a desperate look at Shane who just stared back at him with a smirk on his dumb face.

“Look, Rick, it wasn’t a—Oof!”

“Thank you!” Rick said as he embraced Xander.

“S-sure, no problem!” Xander managed to croak out as Rick crushed him in a bear hug.

“Shane! Shane! Pick up!”

Rick let Xander go when Glenn’s panicked voice came through over Shane’s radio.

“What’s happening?” Shane asked.

“We’re in town,” Glenn said. “There’s four or five guys here! Could be more, but we only saw five. They took our horses and want us to come out. They got guns!”

“Copy that. Hang on, we’re comin’,” Shane replied.

“Me, Maggie and Jimmy got separated when they started shooting. They could find one of us any second!”

Shane cursed, then said into the radio, “Understood. Keep out of sight as long as you can.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Let me get geared up and we’ll—” Rick said before Shane cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“No. Just me and Xander are going. You need to stay here, and not just for your boy.”

Rick looked at the farmhouse then back at Shane and he said, “At least call in Daryl and T-Dog to help.”

Shane shook his head. “I’ll call ‘em in alright, but not to go into town. For all we know this could be a trap, and the sons of bitches that have Glenn and the rest penned down want us to go in full force and leave the farm unprotected.”

“Even if you’re right,” Rick said, “what can just the two of you do.”

Shane and Xander exchanged looks before Xander turned back to Rick and answered, “I don’t just shoot fireballs.”

When Andrea found out what happened she insisted on coming along. Her and Maggie had grown closer since the group came on the farm, and she wanted to help. Shane was reluctant at first, because Andrea was one of their best shots and without her on the farm it was one less capable fighter there to protect it.

“I don’t need your permission, Shane,” Andrea said.

Andrea had been digging holes all day and the dirt and sweat she was covered in made her look especially pissed and stand-offish when she said it.

They took Greggs and Jackson’s station wagon into town. It was one of the groups’ newer and quieter vehicles, and it had the space to carry all the guns and gear Shane brought with them.

Not wanting to be spotted, they parked the car as close to town as they could. They hoped to use the trees surrounding the small town to cover their approach on foot. But before that, they needed some idea of what was happening in town.

Because the town was relatively small Xander was able to use a wide-range detection spell to locate every living and unliving thing in it without giving himself a massive stroke. Since this version wasn’t passive like other detection barriers Xander used before, it took a great deal of focus and magic to employ.

“Damn,” Xander said.

“What?”

“There’s eight people in town and sixty zombies scattered around.”

“You can tell all that?” Andrea asked.

“Never mind that,” Shane said. “Can you tell which ones are Glenn and his group?”

Xander shook his head. “But I can detect three people are standing close to the horses.”

“Where are they?”

“About four hundred meters that way,” Xander replied and pointed toward what looked like the center of town.

“Alright. Anything else?”

“I sense four people moving around slowly, like they’re looking for something. That, or taking leisurely strolls. And one person who hasn’t moved at all since we got here. None of them are close by.”

Shane looked at the town and rubbed his head.

“So, assumin’ Glenn got their numbers right, and none of our people are dead, then there’s just five assholes we got to worry about.”

Shane looked at Xander and asked, “Anything you can do from here?”

“Nothing useful. I’ll need to get closer.”

Shane nodded then turned to Andrea. He pointed at a nearby building and said, “See that building over there? The one with the maintenance ladder leading all the way up to the roof?”

“Yeah.”

“While me and Xander head in closer I need you to get to high ground with that rifle. Don’t start shooting until you get my signal. If you see any assholes contact me and tell me where. Do not engage.”

“Understood.”

“Call me if you see our people. If they’re in trouble cover them as best you can.”

“Got it.”

Andrea skulked off through the trees towards the building. A rifle was strapped over her back next to her pack. She also had a machete sheathed on one of her hips, and a pistol holstered on the other.

Shane turned to Xander. He gave Xander a considering look that Xander found disquieting for some reason.

“What?”

Shane looked at the town and said, “Can you kill these guys if you have to?”

Xander went still as an icy chill ran through him, while a deep sense of guilt and shame settled in his gut like boulders. He needed to take several deep breaths before he was able to answer.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can kill them,” he said.

Shane gave Xander another measuring look before he nodded.

“Good.”

Xander tightened up the detection field so he and Shane were able to maneuver through the town without running into trouble. Doing that also meant they were avoiding their people, too, but Shane wanted to find a position they could use to watch their enemy without being seen themselves.

Eventually they came to shoe store that Xander sensed was empty. Xander took care of the lock and they went inside. The store had been lightly ransacked. Empty shoe boxes had been strewn about, but otherwise the place was in good condition.

Xander made a mental note to remember to come back later after he saw a lot of kids’ shoes left on the shelves. Morales told him a few weeks ago that Louis and Eliza needed new shoes. Carl did too, most likely.

The store’s front windows gave them a good view of the other buildings in town, as well as the two streets that made up the town’s main intersection.

“Fuck. There they are. They got Jimmy.”

Two men, one overweight and the other with an average build stood in front of bar. The overweight man had his arm Jimmy’s neck and a gun pressed against the young man’s temple. Jimmy had been gagged, and his hands seemed to be tied behind him.

The thinner man gripped the reins of the horses.

“Andrea?” Shane whispered into his handheld.

“Yeah,” Andrea whispered back.

“You see the two assholes holding Jimmy?”

Andrea paused before she answered in a low, growling voice. “Yeah.”

“Keep an eye on but stay alert for their pals and our people.”

“Okay.”

“I got your boy here!” the man thinner man shouted out. “Now, we don’t want to hurt him, but if you don’t come out and talk to us, well, we’re going to have to give you some incentive.”

The thinner man turned to his friend and gave him a nod. The other man grinned and holstered his gun. Then he began tearing at Jimmy’s shirt. Jimmy screamed into the gag and tried to struggle free when the man restraining him began groping and rubbing his bare chest.

The man licked Jimmy’s neck and said, “Wherever they’re living has clean water.” He sucked the skin on Jimmy’s neck until it bruised. “This little boy tastes real clean.”

The bastard abusing Jimmy announced what he was saying in a loud voice so anyone nearby could hear him.

“We don’t usually like taking ass—” the thinner creep said before he was interrupted by the other creep chimed in with a jovial, ‘Speak for yourself!’.

The thinner creep chuckled and went on to say, “We saw the sexy little lady you got with you, how about you give her up and we might let you leave with kid and one of the horses.”

“Shit. I hope Andrea doesn’t go off and shoot those motherfuckers,” Shane said still looking at the men holding Jimmy. “Can you take those guys out without hurting Jimmy?” he asked Xander.

When he didn’t get an answer, Shane looked away from the scene on the street outside and at Xander.

“Shit!”

Xander was barely aware of Shane speaking, or of him even being there.

He’d used a good portion of his power to create the fireball earlier, yet Xander felt like he was crackling with magic. As though his blood burned and overflowed with it. He felt like he did the night Michael was murdered.

Xander’s hands turned into fists and his felt his heart thrum violently in his chest. Thinking of Michael’s death only made Xander angrier. He was about to lose control, and he didn’t care. The images of Michael’s mutilated body and the disgusting creep’s hands touching Jimmy kept flashing through his mind made him not want to control himself.

No!

No!

Xander swore after he’d taken revenge for Michael’s death, he would never cross the lines he crossed that night again. But watching those creeps abuse Jimmy to draw out the others made Xander’s blood—and even his magic—boil. He wanted to reach out and twist their necks until they snapped, and then keep twisting until…

Michael.

Michael.

Sweet, gentle Michael. Who had almost been more than just a friend. Xander remembered the first time they cast a spell together and clung desperately at the memory. He remembered how it felt to share so much of himself with another person without words, without thought, for the first time. Xander let the memory wash over him so it would calm the outrage that threatened to consume his mind and body.

Xander remembered and fought back the anger as hard as he could, but the violence and rage still loomed. It had never left him after that bloody night. The urge to punish, to kill, had burrowed deep into in the darkest corner of his heart, curled up, and waited.

Now it wanted to be let—

“Xander! Xander! Come back!”

Xander blinked. Shane had pulled them from the shoe store’s front windows and was gently shaking him by his shoulders.

“W-What? Shane?”

Shane let out a relieved sigh before he released him.

“What happened?” Xander asked.

“I just for real saw someone’s eye burn red-hot with rage,” Shane said.

Xander was shocked to hear Shane’s description of what happened, and he instinctively rubbed the skin below his good eye. As dismaying as his eye turning red was, Xander was glad it hadn’t turned black.

“Sorry, man.”

“I understand what those fucks are doing is upsettin’, but you need to keep your head straight.”

Xander took a deep breath then nodded.

They went back to the window. Xander gritted his teeth and looked away when he saw the man holding Jimmy had his hand down the back of Jimmy’s pants now.  
“With a sweet ass like this maybe we don’t need the bitch to have fun!” he shouted out.

“You bastards!"

Shane and Xander looked at one another, recognizing scream came from Maggie.

The two creeps focused on trying to locate which direction Maggie’s voice came from. The thinner one made a gesture with his hand that didn’t seem to be aimed at his rapist partner before he smiled and started talking again.

“See something you don’t like, darlin’? Come on out and we can talk about it!”

“I’m going to kill every last one of you!”

“How you going to do that when you’re on your back, bitch?” The overweight creep sneered.

“Now, now, let’s not get hostile. Come out, sweetheart. Wanna save your young friend? Let’s talk.”

Silence followed and Xander saw the thinner creep make another hand gesture that definitely wasn’t meant for the rapist creep next to him.

“He’s signaling someone,” Xander said.

“I noticed. Can you tell where they’re at?”

Xander focused his detection field in the direction where the thin man’s unseen ally would need to be to see the hand gestures.

“One guy. He’s moving east in our direction. Real slow.”

“Just the one?” Shane asked.

“Yeah. He’ll pass the back door in a few minutes if he keeps up his current pace.”

Shane unslung his shotgun and set next to Xander, then took out his chisel.

“Tell me when he passes by.”

Xander nodded.

They waited in silence while the thin creep kept trying to bait Maggie into giving away her position again. Xander sensed the third man’s approach. When he came to the back entrance of the shoe store he stopped.

“He’s at the back door,” Xander whispered.

Shane hurried to the door and pressed himself against the adjacent wall, his chisel raised and ready to strike.

The third man carefully tested the door’s lock before he slowly moved away.

Xander gave Shane the signal.

Shane unlocked and the door and stealthy exited the building. Through his senses Xander felt Shane sneak up behind the third man. Five seconds later, Xander couldn’t detect the third man anymore.

Shane reentered the store and locked the door behind him. His chisel was dripping with blood, and spots of it were splashed on his face, neck, and jacket. Shane’s eyes were dark and unreadable. Somehow, that concerned Xander the most. The one thing Xander could count on when dealing with Shane was, he always knew what was going on in the man’s head.

Xander sometimes imagined it was collages of Lori, cold beer, and not very clever plans to kill Rick.

Shane recovered his shotgun and knelt beside Xander.

Xander couldn’t resist wiping the blood off Shane’s face using his shirtsleeve. Xander had no idea why he did it. Shane turned to him with a perplexed look on his face.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing!” Xander quickly pulled his arm back.

Shane shook his head, then went back to spying on the creeps outside.

“You might as well come out,” the thinner man shouted. “We got you out-numbered and we got your boy. You can’t win!”

“Can you check to see if the rest of these shit heads are near-by?” Shane asked.

Xander expand his detection spell to encompass the entire town and immediately noticed there were ten fewer zombies than before. Most importantly, no one else was within a hundred feet of the creeps.

After Xander told Shane what he sensed Shane again asked, “Can you take those two out without hurting Jimmy?”

“Yeah, but—”

“I know. What if one of their buddies see? We might have to risk it before that fat fuck rapes Jimmy right there on the street.”

Xander looked at Jimmy’s broken expression and knew he couldn’t allow him to suffer what was happening to him for a minute longer.

“It’ll happen fast, so be ready,” Xander said.

Xander visualized two transparent rings around the creeps’ throats. As he slowly formed them, Xander made sure the rings were wider than their necks so they wouldn’t feel them and panic before Xander finished molding them. He filled the rings with more and more power until there was enough to give them a physical, albeit invisible form.

Xander shaped the inner part of the rings razor sharp edges, and then with a thought contracted them around the creeps’ throats. Before their heads hit the asphalt, Shane ran out of the store to retrieve Jimmy, who stared down at the bodies of his tormentors with little reaction. After Shane ushered Jimmy into the store, Xander undid the gag and the rope binding Jimmy’s hands behind his back with a wave of his hand. Jimmy barely reacted to that as well.

“Where are they?” Shane asked, bringing his shotgun to bare.

Xander searched the entire town and only sensed four other living people besides the three of them and Andrea, who was still on the roof on the other side of town. Two were heading towards them at running speed.

Shane grabbed his radio and called Andrea after Xander told him.

“We got two coming our way. Take ‘em out.”

There was no reply from Andrea as they hunkered down in the store and waited for an attack. Then a thunderous gunshot filled the air.

“Shit! I got one of the assholes, but the other one got to cover before I could get a bead on him!” Andrea said through the radio.

“Where?”

“Between a car and the gift shop next to the pharmacy.”

There was another shot from Andrea’s rifle.

“What’s going on?” Shane asked into the radio.

“Sorry, he made it to the alley next to the shop.”

Shane turned to Xander. “Find him.”

“What for? He’s gone if he knows what’s good for him.”

“None of them walk away,” Shane said.

Xander shot a quick glance at Jimmy.

“Right.”

Xander found the last man moving west towards the edge of town. He was trying to escape as expected. Xander was about to tell Shane when he noticed another person near the last man’s position, but they weren’t moving. It wasn’t until the man was right on top of them that the unknown person made their move. Three seconds later, the man vanished from Xander’s detection.

“I think… I think Maggie or Glenn just took him down,” Xander said.

Shane called Andrea on the radio and told her they were all clear and to meet up in the shoe store.

While Shane did that Xander expanded his detection range to encompass the entire town again to find the last of their people. He located the same person who’d been immobile when they first arrived. Twelve zombies now surrounded them. Then eleven… Ten.

Xander shot out of the store and ran as fast as he could, paying little attention to the creeps’ decapitated bodies as he passed them. Xander finally came to the building his senses led him to. Four zombies were shuffling towards the building’s doorway. The door that used to be there had been battered off its hinges. Xander heard the growls and groans of zombies coming from within.

Xander took out his gun and put down the zombies in front of him before he rushed inside.

Glenn was surrounded by eight zombies. A dozen more zombie corpses littering the floor of what seemed to be a laundromat that had been out of operation even before the outbreak. Armed with his folding knife and a machete, Glenn took out two zombies after Xander came in. Three more zombies replaced those and forced Glenn to kick and push them back to not be overwhelmed. He just barely avoided their scratching claws and snapping teeth ripping into him. Glenn used several of the old, broken down washers and dryers in the room as barriers between him and the zombies and give himself breathing room.

Glenn had at least four bites on his body that Xander could see. Two on his left arm, one on his right leg, and another on his right shoulder. Glenn must have stopped the zombies that bit him from tearing in too deeply, because each wound only wept blood instead of gushing it.

Xander raised his gun and shot the remaining zombies. When he was done Glenn looked at him with a blood and gore splattered face, and grinned.

“Heya, buddy!” Glenn said.

“Hiya, pal,” said Xander.

Glenn’s eye rolled up and he collapsed onto the body of a zombie he killed. Xander hurried over and pulled him off the corpse and onto a clear spot on the floor. As Xander unstrapped his pack, Glenn asked:

“Maggie… Jimmy… They okay?”

“They’re—” Xander hesitated. “They’re good,” he lied. “Hold on, I’m going to put bandages on those bites. Be still.”

Xander checked Glenn for other bites, but he only had the four. Xander took a first aid kit from his pack then made the holes in Glenn’s shirt wider so he could use gauze to wipe away the blood around Glenn’s wounds. Then he applied postcard-sized plasters over them. Glenn was so out of it he didn’t flinch when Xander pressed down on the plasters to make sure they were placed securely.

Though it was dangerous after casting the fireball, using complex telekinesis to kill those creeps, as well as throwing around multiple detection spells in one day, Xander gave Glenn some of his life force as he wiped gore off his face. The purification ring would take care of any infection, and the bites were survivable, but Xander felt like he didn’t want to take any chances with Glenn’s life.

“Glenn!” Maggie exclaimed. She ran over and knelt next to them. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Watch out for the blood on his face,” Xander said because he hadn’t gotten it all. “He tell you about the ring?”

Maggie didn’t take her tear-filled eyes away from Glenn when she nodded.

“He was bit, a lot, but he should be fine,” Xander said.

Shane, Andrea, and Jimmy had joined them inside by then. Jimmy didn’t look like he was in shock anymore, but an empty, haunted look still filled his eyes like shadows. Andrea gasped at the sight of Glenn, understanding right away he’d been bitten multiple times. Xander saw tears filled her eyes before she turned around and began to sob. Jimmy didn’t have any visible reaction to Glenn’s wounds.

“Can he walk?” Shane asked.

“I can walk,” Glenn said even though his eyes were still rolling around in his head, and he sounded drunk.

“No, he can’t walk,” Xander said. “He was bit four times. It’s going to take the ring a while to cleanse his body. Remember what it was like when you got bit? He’s going through that—times four.” Xander looked down at Glenn. “He shouldn’t even be conscious right now.”

“Got it. I’ll get him back to the car. Andrea. You, Xander, and Maggie get the horses.” Shane turned to Jimmy. “You’re with me.”

Shane picked Glenn up off the ground and started to carry him out of the building.

“Wait a minute!” Andrea said. “He could turn any second!”

“He won’t,” Xander said.

Andrea’s expression was dubious, but she offered no further objections when she saw the certainty on Xander’s face.

As Shane carried Glenn out, with Jimmy trailing listlessly behind him, Xander noticed Glenn wasn’t wearing his pack. Guessing Glenn must have tossed it to free up his motility, Xander searched the room. After kicking over a few bodies, he found the bag under one of them.

In the meantime, Maggie had gathered up Glenn’s machete and knife.

“Let’s go,” Xander said after he strapped Glenn’s pack over his own.

The horses were whinnying and clopping their hooves against the asphalt as they approached. Xander at first thought the horses were reacting to smell of zombie on their clothes, but when he got closer, he saw the decapitated heads of the two creeps who held Jimmy hostage noiselessly opening and closing their mouths. They’d turned while they were rescuing Glenn.

“Wait,” Andrea said. “Why are they—?”

“Bastards,” Maggie said before she spat on the reanimated heads and used Glenn’s machete to put them down for good.

After they’d saddled up, Shane called them over Andrea’s radio.

“We’re halfway to the car. Y’all gone on ahead. We’ll meet you back home.”

Xander, Maggie, and Andrea exchanged glances before they rode off to hook up with Shane and the others.

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah. This will be a slash fic, but not for a few chapters at least. Also, I forgot how early Shane leaves the story in the comics, so I'm going to combine the TV show and comic book canons as best I can, and hope it works out okay.


End file.
